Tk Ruby / Fx Ruby / Wx Ruby

Ruby
1

I have looked at these three GUI’s for Ruby, and would like to know
which the community feels is the better of these three (or is there a
better one that I haven’t listed). I am building small applications
with UI’s that are not too complicated, and wrapping the apps into
.exe files with rubyscript2exe. I like the smaller size of the final
product when using Tk, but the native look of Fx and Wx. What has been
your experience with GUI toolkits for Ruby?

Jayson

2

Alex hit on a VERY good point, ease/difficulty of installation and
redistribution is a big deal with GUI tool kits!

3

Jayson W. wrote:

I have looked at these three GUI’s for Ruby, and would like to know
which the community feels is the better of these three

There isn’t a unified view held by “the community”. The numerous
previous discussions on this topic should indicate this - though check
how recent comments are, as ruby GUI devleopment is an evolving field.

Above all, if you’ve tried them all, go with your feeling, as you know
your requirements best.

(or is there a
better one that I haven’t listed).

There are also ruby bindings to Qt and GTK, which are both nice and
fully-featured toolkits. Qt/Ruby in particular is up there with WxRuby
for cross-platform native feel. “Shoes” is another, new, lightweight,
option.

I am building small applications
with UI’s that are not too complicated, and wrapping the apps into
exe files with rubyscript2exe.

With all the toolkits, you’ll want to check how easy they are to install
and redistribute on the operating systems you want to work on.

I like the smaller size of the final
product when using Tk, but the native look of Fx and Wx.

It’s a fairly straight trade-off between size and features (and,
subjectively, aesthetics). For a very simple app, Tk might suffice. For
a complex end-user app, you might prefer Wx. Again, you know your
requirements best.

hth
alex

4

I’ve been using Fox for windows. It works well. foxGUIb makes it quite
easy to generate the windows. The documentation for Fox although it is
written for use with C works without any trouble when using ruby.

5

That is a point I had not really considered. I am building the apps
for myself, but some may eventually be redistributed to others for
use.
Thanks

6

On Sep 17, 2:24 pm, “Jayson W.” [email protected]
wrote:

That is a point I had not really considered. I am building the apps
for myself, but some may eventually be redistributed to others for
use.
Thanks

On 9/17/07, John J. [email protected] wrote:

Alex hit on a VERY good point, ease/difficulty of installation and
redistribution is a big deal with GUI tool kits!

Is this going to run on multiple OSes or just Windows. If you only
need windows support you may want to look at visualuruby
http://www.osk.3web.ne.jp/~nyasu/vruby/vrproject-e.html

I’ve used it with rubyscript2exe and it bundles nicely.

Luis

7

[email protected] wrote:

Luis

Or even WideStudio if you are looking at GUI applications for multiple
paltforms:

Cheers,
Mohit.
9/18/2007 | 10:51 AM.

8

John J. wrote:

Alex hit on a VERY good point, ease/difficulty of installation and
redistribution is a big deal with GUI tool kits!

Here is my personal point of view …

I just (re)discovered wxRuby with the 1.9.1 beta release and I like it
for the following reasons (in the order of my preferences) :

  • Ruby user friendly syntax (the 1.9.1 beta release includes sugar
    syntax from wxSugar and upcoming release will improve the syntax
    further)
  • really native toolkit that looks great on WinXP for example.
    I’m almost sure that FOX and thus FXRuby are not native toolkits.
  • very easy installation (only one binary gem)
  • flexible licence (commercial and opensource usages)
  • support for Windows, Linux and MacOSX (even if I mainly use Windows)

I’m not a member of the wxRuby team but they have done a good job with
the upcoming wxRuby2.
Nevertheless, if you have different preferences/requirements, your
choice will be likely different.

Cheers,

Chauk-Mean.

9

Jayson W. wrote:

wxRuby was definately one near the top of the list. My only objection
to using it was that the smallest exe file I could obtain when using
wxRuby was a wapping 8Meg.

I’m pretty sure there’s a bug in current rubyscript2exe which makes it
include the wxruby .so library file twice in the .exe bundle that’s
created. Unpacking and fixing this bug so the lib is only included once
gives a working executable file of 3-5MB for a “hello world” app.

I’m following this up with the rubyscript2exe author - in the meantime,
get in touch on the wxruby-users list for more info.

alex

10

wxRuby was definately one near the top of the list. My only objection
to using it was that the smallest exe file I could obtain when using
wxRuby was a wapping 8Meg. I dont know if that should be expected, but
it seemed really big to me. Performance, looks and syntax were all a
plus with me. The size of the exe file was the only drawback.

11

…and what’s wrong with ruby-gtk2?

–
Chris G.

Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

12

Chris G. [email protected] wrote:

…and what’s wrong with ruby-gtk2?

works fine over Mac OS X 10.4.10

awaiting for an aqua version…