The following is example of what I would like to evolve Beardo into doing. Once issue #17 is implemented, the direction I'd like to go is something like this...
beardo> open path/to/schema.json
----------------------------------------------
Imported: Client Werk
Loaded: 3 datasets
- Clients_2015.csv
- Clients_2014.csv
- Clients_2013.csv
----------------------------------------------
Yay, you imported some things. Want to create a magic spell? (Y/n)
beardo> Y
Name this spell
beardo> Client Invoices
What type of spell is this:
1 invoice
2 graph
3 profit-loss
beardo> invoice
Great. We found a template that matches your schema
...
At this point is the more tricky part which I haven't really given enough thought to. But here is where a dataset could be "mapped" via commands (or at some point a GUI) to a template... so I have this old collection of hours from a time tracking program- at this stage a user would need to probably iterate through each "required template value" something like:
Select an item from dataset that represent `hours_worked`
- date
- time
- client
- description
- rate
beardo> time
...
Of course, the "template" could probably have it's own invoice.json schema that expresses something like hours_worked only accepts number inputs which would help sculpt the inputs above. Or perhaps doing inside the HTML template itself using Microformats would be more clever... accept that only works for HTML templates.
This would of course get tricky if a user has loaded mutiple datasets which have different schemas as the JSON Table Schema supports. However, it still should be doable thing and only add one or two extra steps to creating the "spell"
After the schema is all mapped, thee is just one remaining step:
How do you plan to cast this spell:
1 html
2 pdf
3 json
beardo> html,pdf
Great. Ready to do some magic. Just tell me what to output
beardo> --trim client:eHealth --date 2015-02
generating report...
...
beardo> --trim client:Mailpile --date 2015-02
...
Any major blindspots I'm missing?
At some point adding a nice simple GUI to Beardo will be desired... I have some ideas how to do this that seem fun and novel... e.g. not just another boring time tracking app.