From: Kero van Gelder Date: 2001-08-15T07:23:05+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:19739] Re: General (GUI/license) questions > > Tk is nice for quick portable GUI's where niceness is not a priority. > > GTK is not really the way to go on Windows. The only Ruby binding I've seen > > that actually works well with windows is FxRuby. It's not exactly widely > > distributed I belive, but it is very easy to install which counts for a > > lot. I can't speak for the Unix side of the issue, but on Windows you just > > download it - and then it runs. A lot smaller than a fullblown Tck/tk > > download for windows. It runs out of the box like Tk does, but it is much > > nicer. What is fullblown? I stripped the encoding stuff out of tcl, saving about one MB for iPAQ. It is new in tcl 8.3 anyway. > People often forget where Tcl/Tk started : Write a C program, hook into Tcl, > provide your app with an interpreter, and write a Gui whose values you'd > track into your C app. In a world of real shared libraries even a full blown > tcl package Does Not Really Hurt, because you can incorporate some of the > interesting features of its own lib into your program. Somehow it's strange > that those many other 'scripting' languages feel to replace the tcl part in > the tcl/tk relationship (perl, python, ruby), but, its use is not that > convienient like it is in tcl hehe, know what you mean, even though I don't know tcl. There are not sufficient Ruby-extensions in Ruby/Tk, plus the $%^&* threading issue. The latter kept me from writing the ``Make things look beautiful'' chapter in my Ruby/Tk tutorial so far. > If you > really put some work into the tk part, you indeed can get nice results. Even > as "nice" as is Gtk or Qt. Okay, still no round stuff, but if you really like > you can get that too (no one says those widgets are Set In Stone). What would > imho be much more interesting is something like, you say, FxRuby. As TK is > rather a Pain In The Ass to use on Ruby (just my personal impression coming > from tcl) a portable, own, slim toolkit would be nice (yes, it's maybe a > major issue to do one ;p). It's not nice to have tons of toolkits installed > just to have a gui with your programs, yes yes. But as tk is about the only > thing that comes to my mind at sudden, which is portable across mac/win/unix, > I wonder if there would not be a sense in such a package ... > > Of course, on windows, how could you use the fun part in tcl, it's c-lib, > when you have to fight just to get a somewhat grown-up c-api ;> Perhaps. Perhaps making bindings in Ruby is too easy, so your general toolkit would fork into various existing toolkits very soon. One of my aims when programming is portability, which can be enhanced by choice, but also limited. Bye, Kero. > Feel Free To Flame, Never Stop Learning If I refrain from flaming, does that make me wise? +--- Kero ------------------------------ kero@chello.nl ---+ | Don't split your mentality without thinking twice | | Proud like a God -- Guano Apes | +--- M38c ------- http://members.chello.nl/~k.vangelder ---+