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**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 6, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486 "2006-03-06T21:54:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/1 "2006-03-06T21:54:21Z")
This seems a little basic to be posting on a forum, but is there a
website documenting the various gems available kind of like
[search.cpan.org](http://search.cpan.org)? I found RAA but it does not seem to have all the gems,
and has a bunch of non-gem stuff as well.
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**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/2 "2006-03-06T22:23:16Z")
Try [http://rubyforge.org](http://rubyforge.org)
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**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/3 "2006-03-07T17:49:31Z")
Come to think of it, that would be nice 😉
Right now the best way to do it is to look at the descriptions with the
console app, but that’s hardly enough.
Maybe I’ll play with making some slick web interface. Could be fun.
Anyone interested? (unless something exists, which I haven’t really
seen)
.adam
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**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/4 "2006-03-07T19:05:48Z")
Justin B. wrote:
> Try [http://rubyforge.org](http://rubyforge.org)
These are Ruby projects. Few of them are Gems.
john
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**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/5 "2006-03-08T19:52:33Z")
Basically I would like to be able to find what is available in a
somewhat complete state to do a given thing. Rubyforge gives a bunch of
stuff, but most of it is still in early development and is not
documented etc. My assumption is that if they bothered to package it as
a gem then it would hopefully be more completely functional.
If I search for a gem using the command line then I get a basic
description, often there are several alternatives. Other than installing
them there is no way for me to determine which one is most sutable. In
CPAN I can look at the documentation for each available module to see
which resembles what I want.
As the list of gems grows it will be more important to be able to get
details about the gems prior to actually installing them. Until then,
this: [http://rubyforge.org/softwaremap/trove\_list.php](http://rubyforge.org/softwaremap/trove_list.php) is the best
alternative I have found.
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**Author:**  [@bhoult](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bhoult)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-gem-description-like-cpan-for-ruby/54486/6 "2006-03-08T19:15:09Z")
and if a list of gems will suffice,
[http://rubyforge.vm.bytemark.co.uk/gems/](http://rubyforge.vm.bytemark.co.uk/gems/)