# Watir without a web page? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [March 14, 2007, 9:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/watir-without-a-web-page/88773 "2007-03-14T09:05:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mschwab](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@mschwab](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mschwab)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2007, 9:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/watir-without-a-web-page/88773/1 "2007-03-14T09:05:39Z")
I’m on a filtered connection here which won’t let me download Watir so I can’t try this for myself until I go home at the weekend. What I’m thinking is maybe you can use Watir/Internet Explorer as a GUI for Ruby. Instead of reading a web page, you simply create screens, text boxes etc via the Document Object Model. This is predicated on two things. The first is Watir’s connection can manipulate all parts of the DOM and secondly that IE allows you not just to read web pages but also create them (as IE objects not real files) and build text boxes etc. Can you see a flaw in this yet? ---
**Author:** ![mschwab](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@mschwab](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mschwab)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/watir-without-a-web-page/88773/2 "2007-03-17T03:52:20Z")
On 3/14/07, Mike S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > What I’m thinking is maybe you can use Watir/Internet Explorer as a GUI > for Ruby. Instead of reading a web page, you simply create screens, text > boxes etc Is this similar to your idea? It’s interesting. [http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubywebdialogs/index.html](http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubywebdialogs/index.html) Harry – [http://www.kakueki.com/ruby/list.html](http://www.kakueki.com/ruby/list.html) Japanese Ruby List Subjects in English