# Ruby GUI and VisualBasic **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 27, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170 "2006-07-27T15:09:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/1 "2006-07-27T15:09:58Z")
Is there a Ruby GUI environment like the one with VisualBasic, where one can drag &drop widgets to a screen coordinate? Thanks Victor ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/2 "2006-07-27T16:00:22Z")
Dont think so. But what hinders you to make a GUI by just typing? :\> Ruby makes it very easy to subclass and specialize the things you want. Just put them together like lego. Or build what you want (a gui builder) in one of the available GUIs like gtk or qt. ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/3 "2006-07-27T16:03:52Z")
On 7/27/06, Victor R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Is there a Ruby GUI environment like the one with VisualBasic, where one can > drag &drop widgets to a screen coordinate? Not really. There are GUI toolkits where you can specify form layouts in code, but AFAIK there is no tool for building forms except for the partial support provided by KDevelop. It would perhaps be possible to build your interface on KDevelop on a Linux machine and then copy it accross and get it working with the QtRuby - but the QtRuby bindings for windows are not packaged yet. Here’s the project: [http://rubyforge.org/projects/korundum/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/korundum/) Otherwise, building an interface using just code may not be as bad as you think. I started out with the Fox toolkit yesterday and built up quite a complicated interface in about half an hour. You can look here: > **[How to work with Ruby App - Hosting - Namecheap.com](https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/10049/2182/how-to-work-with-ruby-app/)** > > Learn more about How to work with Ruby App. Find your answers at Namecheap Knowledge Base. and here: [http://www.fox-toolkit.com/](http://www.fox-toolkit.com/) for Fox information. The FreeRIDE IDE that comes with the Windows Ruby once-click installer uses the Fox toolkit to generate it’s GUI. A while back I was looking at the wxWidgets toolkit that also had Ruby bindings. wxWidgets has a GUI builder (see [http://www.roebling.de/](http://www.roebling.de/)). Unfortunately the builder produces Perl and Python code but not Ruby, but the author told me that wxRuby could read the XRC resources that the designer can output. I think that means that you can build the interface, but you’d do the bindings between events and code manually. It’s not free - you’ll pay between $29 and $129 for a license, but you can download a trial at the site and play with it if you like. Les ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/4 "2006-07-27T16:20:55Z")
Victor R. wrote: > Is there a Ruby GUI environment like the one with VisualBasic, where > one can > drag &drop widgets to a screen coordinate? > > Thanks > > Victor It depends on which GUI toolkit you use. If you use the QTRuby package, the QTDesigner drag and drop tools are available. I don’t know about the others. Incidentally, if you’re on Linux and KDE, there are similar tools at the desktop level, called Korundum and Kommander. ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/5 "2006-07-27T19:56:12Z")
Thanks to everyone for your quick replies. Victor ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/6 "2006-07-27T16:20:38Z")
On 27/07/06, Victor R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Is there a Ruby GUI environment like the one with VisualBasic, where one can > drag &drop widgets to a screen coordinate? > > Thanks > > Victor You can design a GUI using Glade (for GTK/Gnome2 apps) and then use the .glade file in your program with ruby-gnom2’s libglade bindings. Farrel ---
**Author:** ![ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ribes](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ribes)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-gui-and-visualbasic/100170/7 "2006-08-05T14:18:03Z")
On 7/27/06, Victor R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Thanks to everyone for your quick replies. There IS actually a GUI builder for Fox! I had started my own, gotten as far as a tree of widgets, when I found it in an old list announcement! Here it is: [http://fox-tool.rubyforge.org/](http://fox-tool.rubyforge.org/)