# GUI for commandline programs **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [September 3, 2010, 10:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149 "2010-09-03T10:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 10:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/1 "2010-09-03T10:11:42Z")
I’m looking for a simple, easy to learn, low weight GUI for use in Ruby programs that mainly use the command line but where a bit of GUI might be in order. To give a clearer idea, let me show some examples: 1. Going to a youtube user that has multiple playlists, parsing the playlist then opening a GUI with a list of the playlists so you can chose which to download. 2. At a point in the program, you need to specify a folder to store your data in, so you want to pop open a folder save dialog box, then continue with your basic commandline program. 3. A loop in a program input a file, parses the input and creates a (directed acyclic) graph from it. There is a bug someplace between the parser and the graph generator. You put a form at the beginning showing input data some intermediate variables, and drawing the graph as it evolves to visualize what is going wrong. I hope from these three examples that the things I am looking for in a GUI toolkit clear. The GUI elements are incidental to the main program, the main program is a commandline program and for some reason or other a part of the program is made simpler with a bit of GUI. This however is only the case if the GUI is itself simple. Spending a lot of time setting up an application loop and a GUI justs mucks things up in this case. Also, in each case the GUI portion is started and stopped several times in one run of a program. Suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 10:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/2 "2010-09-03T10:20:28Z")
Sorry for double posting, I have absolutely no idea how that happened. PS This is on linux. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 11:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/3 "2010-09-03T11:12:11Z")
Handy G. wrote: > Suggestions? Depends how portable you want it. Under Ubuntu you could get away with: # Text dialog if system(‘whiptail’,’–title’,‘AARGH’,’–yesno’,‘Delete all your files?’,‘7’,‘40’) raise “Ha ha!” end # GTK+ dialog if system(‘zenity’,’–question’,’–text’,‘Delete all your files?’) raise “Gotcha” end “dialog” is another, older package for text-based dialogs. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 10:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/4 "2010-09-03T10:25:28Z")
Handy G. wrote: > I’m looking for a simple, easy to learn, low weight GUI for use in Ruby > programs that mainly use the command line but where a bit of GUI might > be > in order. > > To give a clearer idea, let me show some examples: > > 1. Going to a youtube user that has multiple playlists, parsing the > playlist then opening a GUI with a list of the playlists so you can > chose > which to download. > > 2. At a point in the program, you need to specify a folder to store your > data in, so you want to pop open a folder save dialog box, then continue > with your basic commandline program. > > 3. A loop in a program input a file, parses the input and creates a > (directed acyclic) graph from it. There is a bug someplace between the > parser and the graph generator. You put a form at the beginning showing > input data some intermediate variables, and drawing the graph as it > evolves to visualize what is going wrong. > > I hope from these three examples that the things I am looking for in a > GUI toolkit clear. The GUI elements are incidental to the main program, > the main program is a commandline program and for some reason or other a > part of the program is made simpler with a bit of GUI. This however is > only the case if the GUI is itself simple. Spending a lot of time > setting up an application loop and a GUI justs mucks things up in this > case. Also, in each case the GUI portion is started and stopped several > times in one run of a program. > > Suggestions? I have used fxruby & foxGUIb successfully for a wee while. FoxGUIb for the GUI (and it uses fxruby). Also I’ve used Shoes. So I can recommend either for you’re solution. rgds, Dave. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/5 "2010-09-03T11:20:00Z")
I should add, that will handle your case (1) and (2) happily, but not (3). The granddaddy of all these is Tk. I think it should be OK if you want to draw some stuff, run the main loop while you wait for user feedback, then break out of the main loop to carry on doing normal stuff. I don’t think you’re constrained to a single “main loop”. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/6 "2010-09-03T17:38:30Z")
> I’m looking for a simple, easy to learn, low weight GUI for use in Ruby > programs that mainly use the command line but where a bit of GUI might > be > in order. If you want easy cross platform I might suggest something jruby-like. anyway here’s a list: [http://wiki.github.com/rdp/ruby\_tutorials\_core/ruby-gui-toolkit-comparison](http://wiki.github.com/rdp/ruby_tutorials_core/ruby-gui-toolkit-comparison) Enjoy! -r ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/7 "2010-09-03T17:31:23Z")
Dave, Friday, September 3, 2010, 2:31:12 AM, you wrote: DL\> Handy G. wrote: > > I’m looking for a simple, easy to learn, low weight GUI for use in Ruby > > programs that mainly use the command line but where a bit of GUI might > > be > > in order. > > To give a clearer idea, let me show some examples: > > 1. Going to a youtube user that has multiple playlists, parsing the > > playlist then opening a GUI with a list of the playlists so you can > > chose > > which to download. > > 1. At a point in the program, you need to specify a folder to store your > > data in, so you want to pop open a folder save dialog box, then continue > > with your basic commandline program. > > 1. A loop in a program input a file, parses the input and creates a > > (directed acyclic) graph from it. There is a bug someplace between the > > parser and the graph generator. You put a form at the beginning showing > > input data some intermediate variables, and drawing the graph as it > > evolves to visualize what is going wrong. > > I hope from these three examples that the things I am looking for in a > > GUI toolkit clear. The GUI elements are incidental to the main program, > > the main program is a commandline program and for some reason or other a > > part of the program is made simpler with a bit of GUI. This however is > > only the case if the GUI is itself simple. Spending a lot of time > > setting up an application loop and a GUI justs mucks things up in this > > case. Also, in each case the GUI portion is started and stopped several > > times in one run of a program. > > Suggestions? DL\> I have used fxruby & foxGUIb successfully for a wee while. DL\> FoxGUIb for the GUI (and it uses fxruby). DL\> Also I’ve used Shoes. DL\> So I can recommend either for you’re solution. I use FxRuby for exactly that purpose and I like it a lot. Sadly, it has reached end-of-life and neither the underlying FOX C++ library or FXRuby that uses it seem to be supported. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/8 "2010-09-06T16:39:31Z")
On Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:20:18 -0500, Brian C. wrote: > I should add, that will handle your case (1) and (2) happily, but not > (3). > > The granddaddy of all these is Tk. I think it should be OK if you want > to draw some stuff, run the main loop while you wait for user feedback, > then break out of the main loop to carry on doing normal stuff. I don’t > think you’re constrained to a single “main loop”. I have never used Tk, though I have encountered it often. It was actually Tk that I ws thinking of when I wrote the post originally, but I’m under the impression that there are several major shortcomings with Tk ( people with more practical experience of Tk please feel free to correct my impressions ). Tk itself is falling into disfavor, so it may not be viable for much longer. The Ruby bindings for TK are crude and iffy. The documentation for the Ruby bindings of Tk is very poor. The Ruby bindings for TK are not very “Ruby-like”. ---
**Author:** ![Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Handy\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Handy_G)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui-for-commandline-programs/197149/9 "2010-09-06T16:39:55Z")
As a shoes maintainer, I’m a bit biased. But since Shoes is more of an app toolkit than ‘toss a gui on something’, it might not be right for you in its current incarnation. I’ve been playing around with QtRuby lately, and it’s pretty solid.