Hey guys! I am a polyglotter who programs in both Java and Ruby. I have an itch that I needed to scratch where I need to have the advanced features such as picture handing in Excel documents that POI offers in a native rails app. There is nothing out there in Ruby-land and your your compilation option doesn't work at all for me (plus from the documentation on the site the graphics extensions have other dependency issues). I didn't want to convert my app to Jruby for one gem so I decided to create a gem using RJB to bridge over to POI running in a JVM.
This is definitely a work in progress and something that I am primarily using to create excel spreadsheets with at this point. With that being said if there is a need for other functionality to be bridged it wouldn't be that difficult to add functionality to this gem. This also might be a good starting point for adding functionality for those using Jruby to condense down the syntax for creating styles etc.. As of this writing I have the project up on github here https://github.com/lgleasain/poi_pond. Once I get the functionality that I need to scratch my own itch I plan on publishing that as a first gem and then reving as I add functionality or fix bugs etc.. Others are welcome to fork the project, add code etc.. What would be the best way for me to compliment your efforts with my gem? Lance
