Ruby GUI Toolkits: GTK, wxRuby And RubyCocoa Explained

Ruby GUI toolkit

GUI toolkits for Ruby that go beyond Tk, with a focus on their various methods for native look, platform compatibility, and complexity. All of these GUI libraries, including Tk, GTK, QT, wxRuby, and RubyCocoa, use a same general procedure: create elements (widgets), associate code blocks as callbacks when events happen, and then use a geometry manager to arrange them for display.

An explanation of these alternate GUI toolkits is provided below:

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wxRuby (Cross-Platform Native Look)

A GUI library called wxRuby is suggested for developers who need a portable application with a more elegant appearance than Tk.

Native Widgets: One of wxRuby’s unique features is that it uses native GUI widgets for Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix. This guarantees that the program will continue to look as a native application across all three platforms.

Complexity and Verbosity: Compared to the Tk library, wxRuby is more advanced and offers a lot more functionality. Its code is typically less idiomatic and more lengthy than Ruby Tk programming.

Installation: Usually, a third-party download is offered.

Code Example: Minimal wxRuby Application

Creating an application class (TroutApp subclassing Wx::App) that specifies a top-level window (Frame) and adds a widget (such as StaticText) to it, followed by the event loop (main_loop), is the fundamental structure.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w
require 'wx'

class TroutApp < Wx::App
  def on_init
    # Create the top-level window (Frame)
    frame = Wx::Frame.new(nil, -1, 'Tiny wxRuby Application')

    # Create a label widget (StaticText)
    panel = Wx::StaticText.new(frame, -1, 'You are a trout!',
                               Wx::Point.new(-1, 1), Wx::DEFAULT_SIZE,
                               Wx::ALIGN_CENTER)

    frame.show(true) # Display the window
  end
end

TroutApp.new.main_loop # Start the event loop

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Ruby/GTK (Gnome Integration)

Ruby/GTK offers Ruby bindings for the GTK widget library in Gnome.

Integration: The Gnome desktop environment can be integrated with GUI apps written in Ruby/GTK. The C libraries of Gnome have bindings available through the Ruby-Gnome2 project.

Layout: GTK packs and arranges widgets in the display area using VBox and HBox objects.

Event Handling: Applications make use of the event loop (Gtk.main) and use signal_connect and other similar methods to link actions to signals (events).

Code Example: Minimal Ruby/GTK Application

This example shows how to properly stop an application by initializing it, creating a window, adding a label, and attaching the 'destroy' event to the Gtk.main_quit function.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w
require 'gtk2'

# Initialize GTK
Gtk.init

# Create a new window
window = Gtk::Window.new('Tiny Ruby/GTK Application')

# Create a label
label = Gtk::Label.new('You are a trout!')

# Add the label to the window
window.add(label)

# Connect the window close event to GTK quit
window.signal_connect('destroy') { Gtk.main_quit }

# Show all widgets
window.show_all

# Start the GTK main loop
Gtk.main

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RubyCocoa (Mac OS X Native Development)

The purpose of RubyCocoa is to develop native Mac OS X apps with a graphical user interface by utilising the Mac OS X Cocoa framework.

GUI Builder Preference: The view layer, which consists of windows and widgets such as NSView and NSTextField, is usually defined by programmers using Apple’s Interface Builder tool. By using this method, there is less need to define the GUI structure in Ruby code.

MVC Focus: RubyCocoa is commonly utilized in the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, where the logic for the Model and Controller is mainly handled by Ruby code.

Platform Specificity: Unlike Tk or wxRuby, RubyCocoa apps are only compatible with Mac OS X and cannot be used on Windows or Linux. This is their main drawback.

Code Example: Defining Controller Outlets

Code in RubyCocoa links Ruby variables to the visual components made using Interface Builder, with an emphasis on the controller. In the GUI builder, the example demonstrates how to define instance variables as outlets that may be attached to objects (such as a button and digital clock).

require 'osx/cocoa'
include OSX

class Timer < NSObject
  # Define outlets (variables linked to Interface Builder objects)
  ib_outlets :clock, :timeField, :button   # Correct syntax

  def tick
    if @running
      # Example: get current time
      d = Time.now

      # Update analog clock outlet
      @clock.setDateValue(d) if @clock

      # Update digital display outlet
      @timeField.setObjectValue(d) if @timeField
    end
  end
end

Note: The way variables are offered for binding in the Cocoa framework is approximated by the ib_outlets definition style, since Interface Builder frequently manages the physical connection.

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Shoes (Educational and Multimedia Focus)

With a primary focus on educational applications and making UI creation easier for novices, Shoes is a cross-platform user interface framework that is straightforward and easy to grasp.

Design Goal: Shoes is designed to help beginners with programming create engaging and interactive multimedia products with minimal effort.

Features: With multimedia components, including as graphics primitives like lines and ovals, transformation operations (such as scaling and rotation), and animations, it facilitates the development of graphical user interfaces.

Simplified UI Concepts: By using stacks and flows, it streamlines layout and defines content using Web ideas (e.g., paragraphs, images).

Code Blocks: In Shoes, code blocks are the primary language feature used to specify actions. Starting with Shoes does not need students who are familiar with code blocks to pick up a new language construct.

Status: It is highlighted that the Shoes API’s GUI capabilities is quite limited, appropriate primarily for creating basic graphical, interactive apps, and that its future development was previously judged uncertain because the primary developer had vanished.

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