Something like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJMRKB3RU_s ? Hehe

So your first step is to figure out how to monitor the updates to the file:

Assuming you have a setup where the spreadsheet you are working on is on a different machine than the server Dashing is running on, you could use write a small ruby program that uses something like rb-kqueue to monitor when the file changes-- assuming you're on OS X. Whenever your file changes, you just use the roo gem that @toddedw mentioned, and then push the data to your dashboard using the Dashing api. Done.

Assuming you have a setup where the spreadsheet you are working on is on the same pc as the Dashing server, you could do something prettttty cool. Since the Thin webserver uses EventMachine, it has access to something called FileWatch. If you're on OS X, EM will use kqueue to monitor file changes. If you're on linux, it uses inotify. If you're on Windows...I have no idea. Anyway!

In your jobs directory, replace the sample.rb with:

sample.rb

require 'roo'

EM.kqueue = EM.kqueue?
file_path = "#{Dir.pwd}/spreadsheet.xls"

def fetch_spreadsheet_data(path)
  s = Roo::Excel.new(path)
  send_event('valuation',   { current: s.cell(1, 2) })
end

module Handler
  def file_modified
    fetch_spreadsheet_data(path)
  end
end

fetch_spreadsheet_data(file_path)

EM.next_tick do
  EM.watch_file(file_path, Handler)
end

For this to work, make sure that:

You include roo in your Gemfile.
You have a spreadsheet in the root directory called spreadsheet.xls. The data it is fetching is in cell (1, 2)
You have a Number widget called 'valuation'. The Sample dashboard has it.

Let me know how that goes for you. Hope this helps!

As a side note, I guess you could do something fancier with ODBC straight to the excel file, but I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader :P

Use with excel data #78

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