Rtf::Rails¶ ↑
Rtf::Rails provides a simple way of creating RTF views in Rails 3 using the rtf library.
To use Rtf::Rails simply add the line
gem 'rtf_rails'
to your Gemfile and then run
bundle install
That’s it! You can now create views named
[action].rtf.rtf_rb
which will be used whenever the user requests a page with a ‘rtf’ extension
Usage¶ ↑
Basic Usage¶ ↑
Rtf::Rails is designed to provide only a very thin wrapper around Rtf itself. A Rtf::Rails view should consist of only a call to the function rtf_document and a block. This will create an instance of Rtf::Document and yield it to the block. For a simple rtf view try:
views/…/simple.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf_document() do |rtf| rtf << "Hello World" end
This will create a simple PDF with only the text Hello World.
Partials¶ ↑
While layouts do not yet work with Rtf::Rails, partials work fine. Rendering a partial is much like in a normal view. For example:
views/…/partial.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf_document do |rtf| render "frontpage", :rtf => rtf rtf << "something else" end
views/…/_frontpage.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf << "frontpage action!!"
As you might expect this will result in a rtf with a leading page.
Instance Variables¶ ↑
Like normal Rails views, instance variables assigned in the controller are made available in the view. For example:
home_controller.rb
class HomeController < ApplicationController def index @people=['Jane','John','Jack'] end end
views/…/index.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf_document(:page_layout => :landscape) do |rtf| @people.each {|person| rtf << person} end
This will produce a rtf with Jane, John, and Jack all written on seperate lines.
Force Saving¶ ↑
The :force_download option makes the browser display a ‘save as’ dialog rather than attempting to display the content in browser (this is achieved by setting the Content-Dispoition header).
views/…/saveas.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf_document(:force_download=>true) do |rtf| rtf << "Hello World" end
Finally is the :filename option. This allows you to override the default filename to something other than the name of the action. Note: You should include the .rtf extension in the filename. Rtf::Rails will not do this for you.
views/…/filename.rtf.rtf_rb
rtf_document(:filename=>'Hello.rtf') do |rtf| rtf << "Hello World" end
This will result in the user being promted to download a file named ‘Hello.rtf’.
Gotchas¶ ↑
The one major gotcha at this point is that layouts do not work. Do not attempt to make an app/views/layouts/application.rtf.rtf_rb. All your rtf views will quit. This is something I hope to fix in a later release. In the meantime I recommend using custom classes like the one above to achieve a similair effect.
Copyright © 2012 MonsterLabs, released under the MIT license