Thinking out of the box

Ruby
1

Time to get out of my little Linux/BSD/win2k3 comfort zone and make
programs for end users.

I’m now confronted with an interesting project. I never thought I’d have
to write software which needs to work well on Windows, Linux, and
MacOSX. I know GUI toolkits and the bindings for ruby really well.
Except the fact I’ve never used any toolkit on MacOSX, only have known
people to use them and try them out. Since ruby 1.8.4 has the adaption
to use Tile[0] widgets by default in the Tk API, I’ve thought about
using Tk. So I’ve a small list of questions for the people regularly
developing on MacOSX. I could test myself, but I just don’t have the
time currently since the project needs to be pushed out quick. I’ve
rarely used ruby on MacOSX and so I need other people’s input. Ruby is a
very portable language for programming, and since theres really no other
decent language/way around, ruby I shall go.

Note: I will not be using Tile[0] on MacOSX for the reason of Tk Aqua.
Unless there is a reason I should just use Tile[0] entirely for this
project since Tile[0] does use the MacOSX Apple Appearance Manager API
to draw widgets.

  1. Does Tk Aqua come pre-installed with MacOSX?

  2. Is it possible/easy to compile ruby 1.8.4 against the Tk Aqua[1]
    toolkit?

  3. Is 1.8.4 release stable on MacOSX?

  4. Is Tk Aqua[1] stable when bound against ruby?(I’m not going to get
    segfaults every 100 lines am i?)

  5. Any problem I’m going to be confronted with?

My test machines… g4 17" powerbook, and then a 14" powerbook

Tsume

[0] Tile: an improved themeing engine for Tk
[1]
Apple - Support - Downloads

2

From: Tsume [email protected]
Subject: Thinking out of the box
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 05:18:35 +0900
Message-ID: [email protected]

  1. Is Tk Aqua[1] stable when bound against ruby?(I’m not going to get
    segfaults every 100 lines am i?)

There is a known bug on MacOS X + Tcl/Tk Aqua Framework.
Please read ext/tk/README.macosx-aqua on your ruby-1.8.4 source tree.

3

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 13:47 +0900, Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

  1. Is Tk Aqua[1] stable when bound against ruby?(I’m not going to get
    segfaults every 100 lines am i?)

There is a known bug on MacOS X + Tcl/Tk Aqua Framework.
Please read ext/tk/README.macosx-aqua on your ruby-1.8.4 source tree.

Has there bug a patch committed in CVS which fixes this bug?

Tsume

4

From: Tsume [email protected]
Subject: Re: Thinking out of the box
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 16:59:03 +0900
Message-ID: [email protected]

Do you know if a fix for this bug has been committed to CVS?

I don’t know how to fix the problem.

I couldn’t find out the reason of the problem,
because I didn’t have a MacOS X box.
And unfortunately, it hasn’t changed.

5

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 17:22 +0900, Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

And unfortunately, it hasn’t changed.
I’ve access to 2 powerbooks. Can the bug be reproduced?

Tsume

6

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 16:51 +0900, Tsume wrote:

Has there bug a patch committed in CVS which fixes this bug?

Let me try again…

Do you know if a fix for this bug has been committed to CVS?

7

From: Tsume [email protected]
Subject: Re: Thinking out of the box
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:38:50 +0900
Message-ID: [email protected]

I’ve access to 2 powerbooks. Can the bug be reproduced?

I got a report that Ruby/Tk-Widget-Demo’s “Message boxes” demo
was freezed.

8

On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 00:13 +0900, Hidetoshi NAGAI wrote:

From: Tsume [email protected]
Subject: Re: Thinking out of the box
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:38:50 +0900
Message-ID: [email protected]

I’ve access to 2 powerbooks. Can the bug be reproduced?

I got a report that Ruby/Tk-Widget-Demo’s “Message boxes” demo
was freezed.

I understand. Here is the summary of what my results of the widget
demos.

‘Message boxes’ FAILED
‘File selection dialog’ OK
‘Color picker’ OK

Message boxes froze up, I’m not sure. Could be be the result of a race
condition?

MacOSX 10.4.5
I tried running stock Tk Aqua(8.4.7), then I tried downloading the
update from the TK Aqua website.

The rest works great, I’m hoping to use Tk for the project coming up,
don’t really have much to decide when creating application targeted
towards Windows and MacOSX. Thanks for working on the Tk bindings.

Tsume