# Interface **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [October 8, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614 "2007-10-08T00:09:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jasonmorrison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614/1 "2007-10-08T00:09:13Z")
Hi There, I have been using rails for the last 6 months and loving every minute of it. I decided it would be smart to dive into learning the in’s and out’s of Ruby. I bought Beginning Ruby, Programming Ruby, and the Ruby Cookbook. I am through chapter 6 of Beginning Ruby and I havent seen any mention of GUI. I primarily work on os x, is RubyCocoa the main way of doing GUI in ruby on OS X? Any tips or advice on where I can read more about GUI with Ruby on OS X would be great. Thanks!! Jason ---
**Author:** ![jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jasonmorrison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 12:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614/2 "2007-10-08T00:33:01Z")
On Oct 7, 2007, at 5:09 PM, Jason M. wrote: > mention > Thanks!! > > ## Jason > > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). RubyCocoa is one way, and it’s the best way to achieve truly native GUI with OS X, but it does require some Cocoa understanding, mostly the Hillegass book. This is poised to change at the end of this month with the new Objective-C 2 and a new XCode as well. But, you can do GUI stuff with RubyTk, WxRuby or Qt libraries for Ruby as well. It’s a little less learning curve than Cocoa, but a whole different approach and you can use that stuff for cross-platform work. ---
**Author:** ![jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jasonmorrison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 12:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614/3 "2007-10-08T00:35:57Z")
Jason M. wrote: > I am through chapter 6 of Beginning Ruby and I havent seen any mention > of GUI. > > I primarily work on os x, is RubyCocoa the main way of doing GUI in ruby > on OS X? Guess what: A GUI platform is a library, not a religion. Ruby is agnostic. The books you read are teaching you how to use Ruby, including how to use it with a library. When the time comes to plug in a > Any tips or advice on where I can read more about GUI with Ruby on OS X > would be great. Not a joke: Why not use Rails to write the GUI you want, then serve it locally? Folks are finding this technique competitive (in the \>cough\< enterprise) with the ponderous desktop GUIs. El Goog can lead you to whatever Ruby/Cocoa libraries are available. ---
**Author:** ![jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jasonmorrison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 1:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614/4 "2007-10-08T01:43:55Z")
> Guess what: A GUI platform is a library, not a religion. Ruby is agnostic. > The books you read are teaching you how to use Ruby, including how to use > it with a library. When the time comes to plug in a GUI library, you’ll be ready. ---
**Author:** ![jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jasonmorrison](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jasonmorrison)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2007, 4:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/interface/116614/5 "2007-10-08T04:03:26Z")
John J. wrote: > > Cookbook. > > OS X > > the Hillegass book. This is poised to change at the end of this month > > with the new Objective-C 2 and a new XCode as well. > > But, you can do GUI stuff with RubyTk, WxRuby or Qt libraries for > > Ruby as well. > > It’s a little less learning curve than Cocoa, but a whole different > > approach and you can use that stuff for cross-platform work. The principle of reading a book on using Ruby is to learn ruby. GUI Programming is done using libraries, for example C, C++, and Perl do not have any thing built in for GUI programming. Yet they are some of the most used languages, even for GUI applications. You are not required to create a GUI. So you need a GUI Library or ‘toolkit’ that suits your needs, this often boils done to Windows / Mac native (some one piss on the Win32 C API please), GTK, QT, or TK. – Programs written in GTK/QT/TK/Toolkit foo won’t look the same as if you used what your OS provides. But you won’t have to write the GUI code for each OS. QTRuby is my favorite, largely because I love the C++ Documentation that comes with QT, it’s great. And I find QT well enough suited to GUI applications since it’s easy enough to write by hand. Even though QT Designer allows one to use a GUI Builder and code generation for the graphical parts make it fast + easy. Java is a bit different in how it has it’s own GUI toolkit(s) but Java is also different in how it runs. Although I’m sure that has changed a lot since the Java Sourcebook came out… hehe. TerryP.