# Embedding Rails in a Cocoa app **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [November 21, 2006, 9:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799 "2006-11-21T09:11:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lukeda)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 9:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799/1 "2006-11-21T09:11:39Z")
Hi, Has anyone tried to embed rails into a Cocoa app? I have got this working to a very primitive point using RubyCocoa. After about half an hour of playing I was able to get WEBrick to serve the rails starter page inside of a Cocoa app, but that is as far as I have got. I have an idea for a client/server app where the server is a Cocoa application that embeds WEBrick (or another server solution possibly) that serves a rails app that interfaces with the running Cocoa application via the RubyCocoa bridge. Is this naive? It seems to me that it should be possible, but I am fairly new to Rails and semi-new to Ruby. I am also kind of looking for some reassurance that this isn’t a totally ridiculous idea before I invest all my time in it. Thanks for any input. - Luke. ---
**Author:** ![lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lukeda)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 11:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799/2 "2006-11-21T11:06:22Z")
Luke D. wrote: > Hi, > > Has anyone tried to embed rails into a Cocoa app? I have got this James Duncan Davidson recently shipped some kind of book application. hold on… /me googles > **[Download Bookshelf](https://support.vitalsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/201344733)** > > Download Bookshelf > > Please visit our Parent Page for the latest Bookshelf downloads. [http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi/Random/VitalSource.html](http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi/Random/VitalSource.html) [http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2005/08/its\_official.html](http://blog.duncandavidson.com/2005/08/its_official.html) It’s a thick client for multiple platforms with rails embedded (I think). Alan ---
**Author:** ![lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lukeda)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799/3 "2006-11-21T17:53:59Z")
Running rails inside of cocoa sounds like a cool/fun idea, but I can’t comment on if this is the right approach without knowing more about what you are trying to accomplish. Why do you need Cocoa to “wrap” the server. Do you want to do this so it is easier to install? Do you want to do this so that you can setup the Cocoa app to configure/modify the rails server? If you’re using a database, you might consider using Cocoa’s Core Data to connect to the same database as your rails application. (and have them work together that way). ---
**Author:** ![lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lukeda)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799/4 "2006-11-22T03:43:46Z")
The reason for running inside of a Cocoa app is that Rails will be communicating with the actual application via the RubyCocoa bridge. I don’t want to give away too many details at the moment considering I am just trying to get a proof of concept thing going. The whole premise here is that the client component of the application is actually a web app which brings cross platform goodness. A bit of a breakdown… The server application will be a Cocoa application that interacts with various other running applications on that machine. The server app embeds a rails app which provides a way for clients to utilise the application. Using RubyCocoa, I hope to get the rails app capable of calling into the Objective-C runtime of the application to make things happen. Does that explain what I am trying to do? ---
**Author:** ![lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@lukeda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lukeda)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/embedding-rails-in-a-cocoa-app/76799/5 "2006-11-22T03:49:47Z")
After a quick browse, this seems slightly different. It seems to be that the client is embedded (via WebKit), but the server aspect is operating in a more traditional sense. Thanks for the links though (y)