Hello pals,
As part of promoting Ruby LibGD, I wanted to share a Cheat Sheet that was requested to make the library easier to use.
It turned out pretty nice and dynamic I hope it’s useful and gets you excited to try the library.
Greetings to everyone.
source: https://github.com/ggerman/ruby-libgd
gem: https://rubygems.org/gems/ruby-libgd
While working on the new UI/UX version of MapView (https://mapview.rubystacknews.com/), I started expanding the graphics ecosystem around ruby-libgd.
The idea was simple:
Generate charts directly from CSV, XLSX, YAML, or Ruby hashes using pure Ruby.
That experiment became ruby-charts, a new gem capable of generating:
Pie charts Bar charts Horizontal bar charts Line charts with PNG, JPEG, GIF, WEBP output and basic customization.
Example:
RubyCharts.from_csv('sales.csv')
.type(:pie)
.title('Q1 Sales')
.save('report.png')
Or:
RubyCharts.from_xlsx('revenue.xlsx')
.type(:line)
.title('Monthly Revenue')
.save('trend.png')
This example and the possible evolution of ruby-charts give a clear idea of the power and potential behind ruby-libgd. Native graphics generation opens the door to much more than charts: server-side rendering, GIS tools, reporting systems, PDF pipelines, financial dashboards, image processing, and data visualization directly from Ruby and Ruby on Rails without relying on browsers or external services.
At this stage, feedback is probably more valuable than adoption itself. I’d really like to hear opinions about the API, rendering quality, possible use cases, missing features, or ideas for where this ecosystem could evolve next.
What would you want from native graphics generation in Ruby?
This is the third time this week that Ruby-LibGD has appeared on Ruby Weekly.
I’m really proud to see the project gaining this level of traction.
LibGD-GIS has surpassed 5,150 downloads and 119 stars
https://github.com/ggerman/libgd-gis
Ruby-LibGD has surpassed 3,810 downloads and 93 stars
https://github.com/ggerman/ruby-libgd
Another milestone was presenting the project at the RubySur (https://youtu.be/ppxalpIKpGg?t=3503) meetup, as well as having flyers distributed at RubyKaigi.
You can explore the evolution of views and clones on GitHub using this extended stats dashboard built with Ruby-LibGD:
https://ggerman.github.io/github-metrics-dashboard/
Demo MapView:
https://map-view-demo.up.railway.app/