How to create a windows startup app

[Sal Syed]

I want my RUby app to automatically be called when windows boots up ...
what is the best way to do this? I am probably going to compile it to an
exe... I would also like to know how to do this for Mac

 

[James Britt]

I want my RUby app to automatically be called when windows boots up ...
what is the best way to do this?

Add a link to the program in the Start Up program group

or

add it to the registry (I forget the exact key, something along the
lines of localmachine/software/microsoft/windows/current_version/run).

In either case you'll need to be sure the calling script will correctly
load the Ruby interpreter. If your app is not getting called correctly
at boot time, try wrapping it in a .bat file:

e.g.

REM myapp.bat
c:\ruby\bin\ruby.exe c:\path\to\your_app.rb




I am probably going to compile it to an

exe... I would also like to know how to do this for Mac

Ruby code does not get compiled to exe. There are some apps that will
wrap Ruby code into self-extracting, self-executing files; see
rubyscript2exe, for example

--
James Britt

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, when asked about static typing
(and a tip of the hat to raganwald)

 

[I. P.]

|James Britt|

JB> at boot time, try wrapping it in a .bat file:
JB> REM myapp.bat
JB> c:\ruby\bin\ruby.exe c:\path\to\your_app.rb
And in this case you'd probably need Hstart utility
(http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/hstart.html)
which hides flickering console window.

 

[James Britt]

|James Britt|

JB> at boot time, try wrapping it in a .bat file:
JB> REM myapp.bat
JB> c:\ruby\bin\ruby.exe c:\path\to\your_app.rb
And in this case you'd probably need Hstart utility
(http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/hstart.html)
which hides flickering console window.

If one is using Curt Hibb's "one-click" installer version of Ruby, you
can use the .rbw extension on the script and Ruby should execute with no
visible cmd shell window.


The times I've had Ruby code execute at Windows launch I did not often
use persistent processes; seeing the DOS box come up was a nice
indicator that the code was actually running, and then seeing that it
was not hanging.



--
James Britt

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