CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubywindowsuser-interfaceframeworks
RKh
RKh

Reputation: 14161

Rich and widely used Ruby GUI framework for Windows?

I read about wxRuby and Shoes but never used them. I want to learn ruby by developing a real-world serious Windows application. Among the available frameworks, which one is widely used and acceptable, rich in libraries and comes bundled with .exe builder?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2915

Answers (6)

Scott
Scott

Reputation: 17247

There aren't a great deal of sensible choices for client/desktop applications in Ruby right now, however I believe one of your best options is to take advantage of mature JVM libraries via JRuby.

The Redcar text editor is written in Ruby and runs on the JVM, and you can view the source on Github here https://github.com/danlucraft/redcar

There is also a development company called Atomic Object that made a neat Ruby desktop app using JRuby with a fairly sophisticated GUI and you can view that here.

I've been thinking about the exact same problem as you and keeping and eye on my the options, these last few months :-)

I've also been using JRuby on the server-side and it's solid and reliable.

Finally, if it's Windows-only as you say, then you could consider using a .NET GUI Framework like WPF and build it using IronRuby, however IronRuby is not yet as mature as JRuby, so you could be exposing yourself to some risk there in terms of compatibility, bugs and performance (and for the record, I like IronRuby!).

However, the potential issues of using IronRuby might be balanced out by the gains you'd make using a GUI framework that's designed and optimised for Windows and is nicer than Swing. WPF is about as rich as it gets for GUI frameworks on Windows.

Upvotes: 6

tentimes
tentimes

Reputation: 1462

With RubyGems I believe it is now possible to install GTK+ for this. So says this in Gems. This is a widely used framework, both in open source and industry. It is used in GIMP and, I think, presents a good windows system that is close to native and easily useable.

Upvotes: 0

eugu
eugu

Reputation: 26

Since RubyInstaller project bundles now complete modern Tk distribution and bindings eliminating Windows installation woes- Tk seems the way to go.

Upvotes: 0

rogerdpack
rogerdpack

Reputation: 66741

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ruby_Programming/GUI_Toolkit_Modules will help

In terms of popularity, in 2008 shooes was most popular, but that has probably dropped.

http://www.pressure.to/ruby_gui_survey/

Upvotes: 0

Bryan Oakley
Bryan Oakley

Reputation: 385940

You might consider using RubyTk. Tk is a toolkit that works with many languages including ruby. For more information see tkdocs.com

disclaimer: I have no idea how widely used it is, though Tk in general is used in many places for both commercial, internal and open source projects.

Upvotes: 0

Vitor Py
Vitor Py

Reputation: 5180

There are bindings for Qt on GitHub. I believe it's a fork from the Korundum bindings from KDE. However, I haven't tried it on Windows yet.

Upvotes: 0

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