# Gui **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 7, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637 "2006-08-07T00:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/1 "2006-08-07T00:23:36Z")
Hello All, Though a lot has already been asked about GUI’s and Ruby here another question. Does anyone know of a platform independent GUI solution, which uses XML (XUL, UIML, or even XAML)? To show you some research has been done, I’m not talking about: wxRuby, FXRuby, RubyQT or Tk. I’m more talking about: Rouge GUI, XUL (XPFE) or XAML I even came as far as: RubyCLR - [http://thinkchiro.com/](http://thinkchiro.com/) (but that’s just for Windows?). Regards, Tom [www.degrunt.net](http://www.degrunt.net) ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 4:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/2 "2006-08-07T04:05:45Z")
On 8/6/06, Tom de Grunt [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Rouge GUI, XUL (XPFE) or XAML > > I even came as far as: RubyCLR - [http://thinkchiro.com/](http://thinkchiro.com/) (but that’s > just for Windows?). > > Regards, > Tom Hi Tom, You might want to look into Gtk2, Gnome2, and Glade. I’ve been having good luck with Gtk recently (after mucking with tk and fox in the past) and it looks like Glade is an xml specification for building Gtk2 GUI’s… Or maybe a piece of software used to design Gtk2 GUI’s which happens to use XML? Just thought I’d mention it since it wasn’t on your list. Regards, -Harold ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 7:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/3 "2006-08-07T07:47:57Z")
Harold H. wrote: > > I’m more talking about: > > You might want to look into Gtk2, Gnome2, and Glade. I’ve been having > good luck with Gtk recently (after mucking with tk and fox in the > past) and it looks like Glade is an xml specification for building > Gtk2 GUI’s… Or maybe a piece of software used to design Gtk2 GUI’s > which happens to use XML? > > Just thought I’d mention it since it wasn’t on your list. > > Regards, > -Harold Harold, i’m working on a pretty simple app that that needs to get 4 or 5 pieces of information from my user so it can run. i’m thinking about applying rubyscript2exe so i can get it in executable form for windows. the script2exeauthor recommends wxruby so that the library can be compiled into the exe file. this is great, but there isn’t much info on wxruby and the tutorial didn’t seem to play nice with this newb. glade looks interesting. can you compare it to wxruby? is it really that much of a hassle to link to the library? are glade and rubyscript2exe compatible? tia… ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 8:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/4 "2006-08-07T08:08:58Z")
On 8/6/06, Skeets [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > on wxruby and the tutorial didn’t seem to play nice with this newb. > > glade looks interesting. can you compare it to wxruby? is it really > that much of a hassle to link to the library? are glade and > rubyscript2exe compatible? > > tia… Hey, maybe Erik (author of RubyScript2Exe) will chime in here but I don’t think it’s the linking up to the library that is the hard part. The thing about getting Gtk stuff to run on windows seems to be that the runtimes (in the form of DLLs I believe) need to be installed on the machine separately from Ruby or your script or whatever. I’m not sure if that’s the case with WxRuby, if not, that would explain why it’s more compatible with RubyScript2Exe. I’ve never personally tried WxRuby, first I tried fox because it came with the one click installer, but the look and feel were all wrong, and the docs for the ruby bindings were confusing to me, so then I tried tk which had the right look and feel but the docs are even more scattered and bizarre! (assuming of course that you don’t read Japanese 🙂 I haven’t personally gotten to the point where I want to spread my Ruby Gtk apps all over the world so I don’t have any personal experience with packaging them up, yet. 🙂 Though I feel like if I can get it running on my own windows box I should be able to write some instructions for other people to get it going too, when the time comes. Moreover, I just assume that any \*nix users that want to use my stuff will not only know how to use Gtk, but will also patch my code in case I’ve somehow injected it with Win32 dependecies. 😉 hth, -Harold ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/5 "2006-08-07T10:27:08Z")
All, Thanks for your answers. I did check out rubywebdialogs, but I guess that when users see a browser, they’ll think the app is a webapplication. Maybe some of you know Komodo (ActiveState) which is written using XPFE (Mozilla’s framework) and Python (using PyXPCOM) this is running like it was a native app on my Mac (OSX). Any opinions on XUL or XULRunner? So now I gotta find out whether libglade/glade run’s on Mac OSX - I’ll try compiling it (if that doesn’t work I’ll try and grab it from darwinports). Thanks, Tom. On 2006-08-07 08:26:02 +0200, Alex Y. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) said: ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/6 "2006-08-07T17:07:36Z")
Skeets wrote: > Harold, i’m working on a pretty simple app that that needs to get 4 or > 5 pieces of information from my user so it can run. i’m thinking about > applying rubyscript2exe so i can get it in executable form for windows. > the script2exeauthor recommends wxruby so that the library can be > compiled into the exe file. this is great, but there isn’t much info > on wxruby and the tutorial didn’t seem to play nice with this newb. > > glade looks interesting. can you compare it to wxruby? is it really > that much of a hassle to link to the library? are glade and > rubyscript2exe compatible? > > tia… I’ve used wxRuby (0.6) and Rubyscript2exe for a number of recent Windows projects and have been pleased thus far. As noted, wxRuby docs are lagging, but I have found the book “wxPython in Action” to be helpful in that regard. My UI needs are simple–a couple forms with buttons, textboxes, and listboxes, along with the occasional ‘Open File’ dialog or message box. The ‘compiled’ executable file is about 3mb in size and runs reliably on all (WinXP) machines tested. Hope that helps. Mully ---
**Author:** ![tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@tdellaringa](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tdellaringa)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 8:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gui/101637/7 "2006-08-07T08:26:59Z")
Tom de Grunt wrote: > Hello All, > > Though a lot has already been asked about GUI’s and Ruby here another > question. > Does anyone know of a platform independent GUI solution, which uses XML > Check here: > [http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubywebdialogs/index.html](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubywebdialogs/index.html) It uses the browser as a renderer. I haven’t had a reason to use it myself yet, but it’s on my list of potentially _very_ useful things. > (XUL, UIML, or even XAML)? > There’s a nasty rumour flying about that anybody wanting to implement a > XAML renderer will need to buy a licence from Microsoft, so I doubt > that’s going to happen any time soon.