Asp Forum - Ruby and GUI - comp.lang.ruby

Satish Talim

8/10/2006 4:33:00 AM

I am new to Ruby and wanted to explore ways to create a GUI (on
Windows) in Ruby. What I have gathered so far is that the following
libraries exist to create a GUI:

a. Ruby Tk - it's language-independent, cross-platform and comes
standard with most Ruby distributions. However, there is no Ruby/Tk
book or documentation to make good use of this library, especially
since I have no Perl background.

b.wxRuby - It's a third party download and works on Windows, Unix and
Mac OS X. It has many more features than Tk but the writing code in it
is quite complex.

My questions are:

a. Is my above brief assessment correct?
b. Is there a book or documentation on Ruby/Tk?
c. Is there any good documentation on wxRuby
d. Which according to the experts here, is the best library to use to
build GUI on Windows and why?

Thanks.
--
Satish Talim

5 Answers

jmg3000

8/10/2006 4:51:00 AM

On 8/10/06, Satish Talim <satish.talim@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am new to Ruby and wanted to explore ways to create a GUI (on
> Windows) in Ruby. What I have gathered so far is that the following
> libraries exist to create a GUI:
>
> [snip]

Hi,

You'll want to search the mailing list archives for "Ruby GUI" -- you
should find lots of stuff. This question is asked pretty regularly.
Note, this list is mostly mirrored on comp.lang.ruby, so you might try
searching there as well.

---John

vasudevram

8/10/2006 10:09:00 AM

John Gabriele wrote:
> On 8/10/06, Satish Talim <satish.talim@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am new to Ruby and wanted to explore ways to create a GUI (on
> > Windows) in Ruby. What I have gathered so far is that the following
> > libraries exist to create a GUI:
> >
> > [snip]
>

Hi,

I saw somewhere on the Net recently that wxRuby development is slow or
stopped - not sure why, and unlike wxPython - though both wxRuby and
wxPython are based on the same underlying wxWindows/wxWidgets C++
cross-platform GUI toolkit). The same web page also said (in reply to a
question similar to yours) that FxRuby seems to be a better option
than wxRuby (considering all factors together, not necessarily just on
technical merits, e.g. could have been referring to the fact that
wxRuby dev. is slow/stopepd). Don't know more than this as of now.
FXRuby is based on the Fox toolkit, a C++ GUI toolkit.

FXRuby: http://www.f...

Fox toolkit: http://www.fox-to...

HTH
Vasudev
---------------------------------------------------------
Vasudev Ram
Software consulting and training
http://www.dancin...
PDF creation/conversion toolkit:
http://sourceforge.net/proje...
---------------------------------------------------------

John Lam

8/10/2006 3:09:00 PM

It depends on whether you want cross-platform or not. If you don't
care, you can use RubyCLR with Windows Forms or the new Windows
Presentation Foundation libraries.

See this for a screenshot of a WPF version of irb:
http://www.iu.../articles/2006/07/27/oscon-day-3-and-a-bette...

That should give you a better idea of what's possible using WPF (and
that's really just scratching the surface of WPF).

The downside of WPF is that it's insanely overengineered and complex -
think of it as a low-level rendering library and you'll do fine. To
get stuff done, use Windows Forms.

-John
http://www.iu...

On 8/10/06, Satish Talim <satish.talim@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am new to Ruby and wanted to explore ways to create a GUI (on
> Windows) in Ruby. What I have gathered so far is that the following
> libraries exist to create a GUI:
>
> a. Ruby Tk - it's language-independent, cross-platform and comes
> standard with most Ruby distributions. However, there is no Ruby/Tk
> book or documentation to make good use of this library, especially
> since I have no Perl background.
>
> b.wxRuby - It's a third party download and works on Windows, Unix and
> Mac OS X. It has many more features than Tk but the writing code in it
> is quite complex.
>
> My questions are:
>
> a. Is my above brief assessment correct?
> b. Is there a book or documentation on Ruby/Tk?
> c. Is there any good documentation on wxRuby
> d. Which according to the experts here, is the best library to use to
> build GUI on Windows and why?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Satish Talim
>
>

Lyle Johnson

8/10/2006 4:09:00 PM

On 8/10/06, vasudevram <vasudevram@gmail.com> wrote:

> I saw somewhere on the Net recently that wxRuby development is slow or
> stopped - not sure why, and unlike wxPython - though both wxRuby and
> wxPython are based on the same underlying wxWindows/wxWidgets C++
> cross-platform GUI toolkit).

wxRuby development is slow (at times), but definitely not stopped.

FXRuby is probably a good choice for you to check out if you need to
get started with something right now. As GUI toolkits for Ruby go,
it's relatively mature and stable. Other good choices to check out are
Ruby/GTK and Ruby/Qt (in addition to the previously mentioned
Ruby/Tk).

Meinrad Recheis

8/11/2006 2:34:00 AM

On 8/10/06, Satish Talim <satish.talim@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am new to Ruby and wanted to explore ways to create a GUI (on
> Windows) in Ruby. What I have gathered so far is that the following
> libraries exist to create a GUI:
>
> a. Ruby Tk - it's language-independent, cross-platform and comes
> standard with most Ruby distributions. However, there is no Ruby/Tk
> book or documentation to make good use of this library, especially
> since I have no Perl background.
>
> b.wxRuby - It's a third party download and works on Windows, Unix and
> Mac OS X. It has many more features than Tk but the writing code in it
> is quite complex.
>
> My questions are:
>
> a. Is my above brief assessment correct?
> b. Is there a book or documentation on Ruby/Tk?
> c. Is there any good documentation on wxRuby
> d. Which according to the experts here, is the best library to use to
> build GUI on Windows and why?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Satish Talim
>

fxruby is quite good. has been the best gui binding for ruby for a
long time. now there are pretty many alternatives: beside what you
already mentioned there are also good ruby bindings for GTK and Qt.

to answer your last question: there is no best toolkit. there may be a
best one for a specific purpose. i remember an article at freshmeat
that compared gui toolkits. i chose my preferred toolkit (fxruby) with
help of the information gathered there.
http://freshmeat.net/articles...

there is quite an introductory document for the fxruby toolkit for its
gui builder foxGUIb:
foxGUIb: http://fox-tool.ruby...
User Guide: http://www.mikeparr.info/rubyguib/foxgu...

hope this helps,
-- henon

comp.lang.ruby