The definitive GUI for Ruby

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira Jr.]

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Hello there.

I'm wondering about some things here.

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages, they ask "=
but
what is the Ruby official GUI?".

Ok, I know that we have some really good options on GUIs - GTK, Qt, etc, =
and we
use the one we like most - but this kind of freedom sometimes can looks l=
ike a
missing "way to do that", at least for the biggest part of those guys, an=
d, let
me confess, sometimes I stay confused about this question also, because t=
here
are really good choices and no time available to test it all.

I'll make some apps and I'm still with doubts about what option to use!

I'm just wondering if will not be a good (or horrible!) idea to have an
"official" Ruby GUI (not Tk, please! some more cute components ;-) to mak=
e clear
to people what can be their first option to use when migrating their apps=
from
some other language. As Rails is *the* Ruby option for web development, I=
think
the apps GUI is still some kind of losing the focus ...

What you guys think about? What could be our answer to that initial quest=
ion?

Best regards,

- --
- ----------------------------
Eust=E1quio "TaQ" Rangel
(e-mail address removed)
http://beam.to/taq
Usu=E1rio GNU/Linux no. 224050
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[Alan Gutierrez]

I'm wondering about some things here.

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages,
they ask "but what is the Ruby official GUI?".

What you guys think about? What could be our answer to that
initial question?

http://engrm.com/wiki/Refresh

Cheers.

 

[Kirk Haines]

I'm just wondering if will not be a good (or horrible!) idea to have an
"official" Ruby GUI (not Tk, please! some more cute components ;-) to make
clear to people what can be their first option to use when migrating their
apps from some other language. As Rails is *the* Ruby option for web
development, I think the apps GUI is still some kind of losing the focus
...

No. Rails isn't the "the" Ruby option for web development. It is _a_ Ruby
option for web development. It's success has come about largely because of
DHH's hard work, time, and marketting perseverance on a capable product.
It's not the only choice, though, or even necessarily the best, depending on
one's needs.

The situation with GUI frameworks is similar. There are pros and cons with
every one of them, so the choice of GUI depends on one's goals. An official
GUI for Ruby would be a bad idea, just as an official web development
framework for Ruby would be a bad idea. Better would be a good,
comprehensive, relatively impartial summary of Ruby GUI options, perhaps with
runnable examples available for download, so that the GUI framework landscape
is clearer.

There are a couple pages on the rubygarden.org wiki about this. The most
complete one that I know of is

http://rubygarden.org/ruby?ComparingGuiToolkits

But it stops short of what, IMHO, would be ideal for a one stop Ruby GUI
options reference.


Kirk Haines

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages, they ask "= but
what is the Ruby official GUI?".

There's no such thing, and that's a good thing.

I'm just wondering if will not be a good (or horrible!) idea to have an
"official" Ruby GUI (not Tk, please! some more cute components ;-) to mak= e clear
to people what can be their first option to use when migrating their apps= from
some other language. As Rails is *the* Ruby option for web development, I= think
the apps GUI is still some kind of losing the focus ...

Sorry, but Rails is not "the" option or even the "official" option.
Rails just happens to be the most popular option. I'm sure that Kirk
Haines and George Moschovitis and anyone else who works on web
application frameworks would *love* to hear that Rails is officially
the Ruby web framework. It might even surprise DHH.

What you guys think about? What could be our answer to that initial quest=

ion?

"Ruby doesn't have one, because it doesn't need one. If you're
developing for MacOS X, you need Cocoa. Ruby does that. Ruby also
supports native Windows MFC development and Qt and Gtk as well."

-austin

 

[Kirk Haines]

* Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira Jr. <[email protected]> [2005-10-04 07:52]:

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages,
they ask "but what is the Ruby official GUI?".

What you guys think about? What could be our answer to that
initial question?

http://engrm.com/wiki/Refresh

Now, be fair. Refresh looks like it has some admirable goals, but it is still
vapor. It is not yet even a valid choice for a GUI framework, let alone one
that has a chance to rise to prominence.


Kirk Haines

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira J]

No. Rails isn't the "the" Ruby option for web
development. It is _a_ Ruby=20
option for web development. It's success has come
about largely because of=20
DHH's hard work, time, and marketting perseverance
on a capable product. =20
It's not the only choice, though, or even
necessarily the best, depending on=20
one's needs.

Well, you got the idea. I was talking about all
the hype about Rails. We have a well-know and good
product to talk about at least on a first moment. So
people can say "oh, I heard about it".=20

Later, when we started the talk with a common know
product, we can talk about the other ones.
=20

There are a couple pages on the rubygarden.org wiki
about this. The most=20
complete one that I know of is
http://rubygarden.org/ruby?ComparingGuiToolkits

Thanks for the URL.=20

Best regards,

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira J]

Sorry, but Rails is not "the" option or even the
"official" option.
Rails just happens to be the most popular option.
I'm sure that Kirk
Haines and George Moschovitis and anyone else who
works on web
application frameworks would *love* to hear that
Rails is officially
the Ruby web framework. It might even surprise DHH.

I answered Kirk right now.
Sorry if I was not clear, I was just trying to mention
all the hype about Rails and as it is a well know
product these days.=20

Not that I consider it the best web framework. I can't
talk about that, I never used any of the options
available.

Best regards,

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira J]

Now, be fair. Refresh looks like it has some
admirable goals, but it is still=20
vapor. It is not yet even a valid choice for a GUI
framework, let alone one=20
that has a chance to rise to prominence.

Yes, seems to be a very good idea, but it's really not
the example I was trying to find to tell people about
GUI. Maybe when it's ready.

Best regards,

 

[Alan Gutierrez]

* Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira Jr. <[email protected]> [2005-10-04 07:52]:

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages,
they ask "but what is the Ruby official GUI?".

What you guys think about? What could be our answer to that
initial question?

http://engrm.com/wiki/Refresh

Now, be fair. Refresh looks like it has some admirable goals, but
it is still vapor. It is not yet even a valid choice for a GUI
framework, let alone one that has a chance to rise to prominence.

It's a week old, if that's what you mean.

Seriously, I'm just letting people know in care they're
interested.

Cheers.

 

[Robert Klemme]

Well, you got the idea. I was talking about all
the hype about Rails. We have a well-know and good
product to talk about at least on a first moment. So
people can say "oh, I heard about it".

Later, when we started the talk with a common know
product, we can talk about the other ones.

Is it possible to add a table with feature vs. UI toolkit so people can
quickly check them against each other?

robert

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira J]

Is it possible to add a table with feature vs. UI
toolkit so people can
quickly check them against each other?

Very good idea.=20

Best regards,

 

[Guillaume Marcais]

Is it possible to add a table with feature vs. UI toolkit so people can
quickly check them against each other?

One feature I'd like to see mention is the ability for the UI toolkit
library to be embedded in binary distribution, like rubyscript2exe and a
few others do. I know wxruby plays well with rubyscript2exe but not Tk,
and for me that rules Tk out. I don't know about the other and it would
be nice to know.

Guillaume.

 

[Jamey Cribbs]

One feature I'd like to see mention is the ability for the UI toolkit
library to be embedded in binary distribution, like rubyscript2exe and a
few others do. I know wxruby plays well with rubyscript2exe but not Tk,
and for me that rules Tk out. I don't know about the other and it would
be nice to know.

FXRuby also plays *very* well with rubyscript2exe.

Jamey Cribbs

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[vapidbabble]

Neither FxRuby or WxRuby seem to play very well on Tiger,for me. Maybe
I'll try Qt/Ruby, although their license for windows used to be not to
my tastes.

 

[Jim Freeze]

Neither FxRuby or WxRuby seem to play very well on Tiger,for me. Maybe
I'll try Qt/Ruby, although their license for windows used to be not to
my tastes.

Try RubyCocoa. It Rocks!

 

[vapidbabble]

Yes it does. It's very slick. But not exactly cross-platform . My
preference is wxRuby, I'm a Python traitor and used wxPython, wxWindows
before. I'll probably sub on the list for wxRuby[1], and try
darwinports (seems slow on some apps but nice selection of ruby stuff
not on gems) or compile the source (seems fast on my new mac-Mini for
what I compiled and didn't have a *.dmg).[2]

 

[Dave Howell]

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Hello there.

I'm wondering about some things here.

Everytime I talk about Ruby to programmers of other languages, they
ask "but
what is the Ruby official GUI?".

As somebody who's much more "a serious user who programs small things"
rather than a professional programmer, and a Mac user, I can tell you
now that any app that tried to get me to use some generic GUI instead
of using Aqua is an app I wouldn't use. GUI design is all about
everything being exactly where it's supposed to be. Buttons that work
they way they always work. Menus where "File," "Help" and so on are in
the same place, and do the same things, every time.

A "universal" GUI could get close, but getting close just means it'll
be insanely annoying because of the little things that aren't exactly
right.

Languages don't get to have "official" GUIs. That's the OS's
prerogative these days.

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira J]

A "universal" GUI could get close, but getting close
just means it'll=20
be insanely annoying because of the little things
that aren't exactly=20
right.

Millimeter stuff.
=20

Languages don't get to have "official" GUIs. That's
the OS's=20
prerogative these days.

I don't agree with that. Java have Swing.=20
And some others, right, but people focus on it. Does
not means it's perfect, but it's the focus there. And
use to work fine on a lot of OS's.=20

I mean, maybe not a sooooo official (for programmer,
for Sun it is), but is a start point.=20
Tk is still too ugly for make programmers that are
migrating.

Best regards,

 

[Eivind Eklund]

Very good idea.

There is one here: http://vworkers.com/vruz/dav/guichart.html

Somewhat old, and it was intended to be kept updated here:
http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?GUIComparisonChart

(Not sure if the wiki is updated enough that tables are possible now)

That was part of the RPA PackageAdvisor project, available here:
http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.cgi?PackageAdvisor

Feel free to update that as applicable. No matter what happens to the
actual packages, there's a number of pieces of the RPA infrastructure
that can still be a boon to Ruby if people help keep them up to date.

Eivind.

 

[Rich Morin]

... any app that tried to get me to use some generic GUI instead
of using Aqua is an app I wouldn't use. ...

Well, actually, you use non-Aqua GUIs all the time. Every web site
offers an unknown combination of HTML, image maps, AJAX, etc. That
said, I agree that having consistent look and feel on the desktop is
very useful.

You may be interested to know about

RubyCocoa - A Ruby/Objective-C Bridge for Mac OS X with Cocoa
http://rubycocoa.sourceforge.net/doc

RubyCocoa seems to be an active project, so I presume that it actually
lets Ruby coders produce Cocoa apps, using the Interface Builder, etc.
My experience with CamelBones (which does the same sort of thing for
Perl) leads me to suspect that the experience is not seamless:

* Objective-C has its own naming conventions and method invocation
syntax, which are quite different from those used by Ruby, Python,
etc. In CamelBones, this means that the programmer has to look up
methods by "translated" names, etc.

* Apple hasn't shown any great interest in supporting any languages
other than Objective-C for Cocoa programming. They wave a hand in
the direction of Java, from time to time, but ObjC is definitely
the "blessed" language.

* CamelBones ran into problems when the version of Perl changed. I
don't know if RubyCocoa has similar "robustness" issues.

I would be happy to hear comments from any RubyCocoa users, as I've been
considering trying it out at some point...

-r