# WYSIWYG IDE, etc **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 16, 2006, 7:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838 "2006-05-16T07:54:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 7:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/1 "2006-05-16T07:54:32Z")
I’m new to Ruby, so don’t be too hard on me. Is there a great visual editor for Ruby? Also can Ruby on Rails (RoR) work with any other databases other than the ones listed in the documentation, I need to connect to SQLBase? Can Ruby be used to create standalone Applications (like Java)? If yes, does it create native looking apps? Can it be use in Client-Side and/or Server side web development? Does Ruby have any AJAX components that are part of a WYSIWYG IDE (see first question)? Thanks P.S. It is taking me sometime to get used to how things work in Ruby, but so far it’s a great language!! ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 8:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/2 "2006-05-16T08:46:25Z")
I’ve just jumped from my “old faithful” vim to RadRails - impression after a few days is that it’s very good. IMHO the power of vim is less important with Ruby/Rails, where the majority of your methods/views tend to be under (say) 20-30 lines long. As far as an “IDE” goes, there isn’t one along the lines of e.g. Visual Studio. However, RadRails + NVU is a combination that I’m very happy with - you “draw” the forms with NVU, then take the HTML/CSS from NVU, move it into Rails views/partials and then edit views/partials/controllers to suit. That’s massively simplifying it, but it’s quite intuitive and extremely productive once you get your head around it. HTH Davee M. ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 9:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/3 "2006-05-16T09:07:41Z")
Regg Mr wrote: > Is there a great visual editor for Ruby? I am personal quite against IDEs. To write HTML I have always preferred a good text editor (with HTML facilities). On the Mac you can consider BBEdit or TextMate (but since TM has a lot of facilities to work with Rails, I would consider it directly). HTML is not that hard and writing by hand (of course aided by the editor, if you want to) gives you a great amount of control and it is likely that you will produce cleaner code. I’m speaking about HTML since you will be working with “rhtml”, that is to say HTML with embedded ruby. Something a good text editor manages easily. I would not advise any IDE/Visual Editor. Unless it is fully rails-aware, you would miss the best from rails. For example it quite common to define “partials”. For example in a single file you can define the way a post/message/customer/whatever is presented, and then where you need to show it, you call the partial. It is something similar to define a function and recall it from a conceptual point of view. This way of working simplifies mantainance and makes you write less code. And it is something you would not use with a Visual Editor, I’m afraid. > Can Ruby be used to create standalone Applications (like Java)? > If yes, does it create native looking apps? Yes, but it is not a matter of Rails. “native looking apps” depends on the OS: I know for sure that with MacOS X you can use the RubyCocoa binding (and you get native looking apps). In the \*nix world there is plenty of toolkits that can be used with Ruby (qt and gtk2 just to name two). Again they are “native looking”. And then you can use cross-platform toolkits like wx (well qt and gtk are quite cross-platform too, but that’s another story). And they look quite good. I don’t work on windows, but I suppose that since you can call Windows API, you should be able to use its native graphical system. However you should get good looking apps using wx or gtk, too. – blog: [http://www.akropolix.net/rik0/blogs](http://www.akropolix.net/rik0/blogs) | site: [http://www.akropolix.net/rik0/](http://www.akropolix.net/rik0/) | forum: [http://www.akropolix.net/forum/](http://www.akropolix.net/forum/) | ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 9:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/4 "2006-05-16T09:10:47Z")
And what might NVU be? 🙂 -Nb On 5/15/06 11:44 PM, “David M.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > but it’s quite intuitive and extremely productive once you get your > > > Rails mailing list > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) > > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) ```auto Nathaniel S. H. Brown http://nshb.net ``` ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 10:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/5 "2006-05-16T10:02:41Z")
Nathaniel B. wrote: > And what might NVU be? 🙂 [http://www.google.com/search?q=nvu](http://www.google.com/search?q=nvu) ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/6 "2006-05-17T19:19:04Z")
After my experience wtih a lot of .NET guys at my work environment, GUI editors tend to make crappy code. e.g. visual studio not allowing an element to have a class _and_ and id out of the box. creating ids that are 30 characters long for no good reason. I am a firm believer that the best way to learn all of this stuff is to just type by hand over and over again. HTML, Ruby, Rails standard constructs, etc. The more you do it, the better you’ll be and the better understanding you’ll have of it. GUI editors tend to create a crutch in my experience and they limit the user more so than enable them. Ruby can be used for anything. If there’s not a DB connector already written, I would anticipate it would take a new user a few weeks to figure out how to get them talking on the back end. There are probably other users with a similar need. Ruby can be compiled. It’s not like a .jar tho. Rails has the AJAX components. Rails is built with ruby (it’s a framework). On May 16, 2006, at 1:54 AM, Regg Mr wrote: > Can it be use in Client-Side and/or Server side web development? > > – > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). > > * * * > > Rails mailing list > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) – John A. removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Meticulous | [www.meticulous.com](http://www.meticulous.com) (work) Rotoscope | [www.rotoscope.com](http://www.rotoscope.com) (sound: rock band) Boboroshi & Kynz | [www.boboroshiandkynz.com](http://www.boboroshiandkynz.com) (sound: electronic) Personal Weblog | [www.boboroshi.com](http://www.boboroshi.com) (play) “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the Governor November 11, 1755 ---
**Author:** ![regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@regg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regg)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wysiwyg-ide-etc/94838/7 "2006-05-16T12:30:37Z")
I use RadRails and it has served me admirably so far though you don’t really NEED an IDE for Rails, but it’s useful. I use SCITE for non-Rails R. work, which is bundled along with the Ruby installer I used (I forgot which one) and that’s the best I’ve used so far, but I’ve only done Ruby dev on Windows. Ruby can be used to create both client side and server side apps – in Projectible ([http://www.projectible.com](http://www.projectible.com)) the backend is done with Rails while the front-end Windows app is a Ruby app done with FxRuby. The Projectible client is a standalone Windows application, but it doesn’t have a native look-and-feel. While some other widget toolkit can do that, really native stuff on Windows can be done through COM using the Win32 module. Regg Mr wrote: > Can it be use in Client-Side and/or Server side web development? – Sau S. [http://blog.saush.com](http://blog.saush.com) [http://www.projectible.com](http://www.projectible.com) [http://jaccal.sourceforge.net](http://jaccal.sourceforge.net)