From: Leslie Viljoen <leslieviljoen@...>
Date: 2008-06-09T00:25:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Desktop multi-plataform ruby app

On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Victor Reyes <victor.reyes@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 8:20 AM, Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>  On Sat, 2008-06-07 at 05:57 +0900, James Britt wrote:
>>
>> If you have questions, jump on #monkeybars on irc;  the Monkeybars squad is usually about and very happy to answer questions.
>>
>>
>> Which network?  Freenode?  The #monkeybars channel there has no topic and
>> one person idling in it.  :)
>>
>>   --
>> *Michael T. Richter* <ttmrichter@gmail.com> (*GoogleTalk:*
>> ttmrichter@gmail.com)
>> *Never, ever, ever let systems-level engineers do human interaction design
>> unless they have displayed a proven secondary talent in that area. Their
>> opinion of what represents good human-computer interaction tends to be a bit
>> off-track. (Bruce Tognazzini)*
>>
> Team,
>
> *Tristin*: I already tried the suggestion of FxRuby plus other GUIs. The
> documentation for FxRuby was so so. I am the type that learn by example.
> *Hassan*: I'll give it a try without un-installing "regular" Ruby.
> *Tom*: I am also terrified of the Java T-Rex. So many packages, so many ways
> to configure it, so many .....
>         I went to
> http://www.netbeans.org/community/releases/61/install.html#requiredsoftwareand
> found the soft requirements. I proceeded to Sun site and downloaded a
> ton of software: JDK, JRE, NetBeans, Etc.  My installation went fine. The
> problem is when I try something as simple as jruby -v (I do ruby -v for
> regular ruby, so I assume the same is valid for jruby only with the prefix
> j). I got the msg:
>
>       Set JAV_HOME to point to your JDK/JRE directory.
> I am using MS Windows XP and I set the variable. So now it works as long as
> I am inside the *C:\jruby-1.1.2\bin* dir. I tried setting the PATH but
> nothing.
> *C:\jruby-1.1.2\bin>jruby -v
> ruby 1.8.6 (2008-05-28 rev 6586) [x86-jruby1.1.2]
>
> *I set the PATH but nothing. Perhaps I am not setting the PATH correctly. So
> this is my new show-stopper. I will continue playing until I either get it
> or get tired. Although I am already getting tired. This is not supposed to
> be this difficult. But dealing with Java nothing is ever simple.
> *Leslie*: Does Glade provides a drag/drop widget creation feature? I went to
> *glade.gnome.org* but could not find anything about it.


Glade is a form builder, it allows you to drop containers onto forms
and Gtk widgets
into those containers. This is not the same as with Netbeans or Visual Studio,
but you can get the same results and in some ways the system is better
- it takes better care of how forms change when text is translated or
fonts changed.

You may find it has a learning curve in the beginning, but only until
you understand
how things work, after that it's quick and easy.

I'm putting together a 5-minute tutorial but I'll include the text
portion below
to get you started. The tutorial uses the "glader" script which I'll
include at the bottom.

Warning: I haven't tried glader in Windows yet!


Starting out with Glade and Ruby
------------------------------------------

Open glade.

1. Add a new window, common -> border width: 10
2. Add a vbox to the window (2 items), general -> spacing: 10
3. Add a hbox to the bottom area, general -> spacing: 10
4. Right-click hbox in tree, add parent, alignment
5. Put a button in each of the two bottom blocks
6. On the alignment container, horizonal scale: 0, vertical scale: 0,
horizontal alignment: 1
7. On the alignment container, expand: no, fill: no

If expand is no, the area does not take on more space when the parent grows.
If expand is yes, the area will grow with its parent, and 'fill'
controls how it grows.
If 'fill' is yes, extra space is added around the widgets, otherwise
the extra space
goes inside the widget and the widget itself grows.

8. Add a table in the top space
9. table, packing -> expand: no, general -> row spacing: 10, column spacing: 10

Before saving, click on window1, signals -> gtkobject -> destroy and select
"on_window1_destroy" from the combo.

Now save as "designation" and run "./glader designation.glade" from
the command line.
After generation, run "ruby designation.rb"

Note that when you resize, everything still looks good except the
three labels, which
shouldn't grow horizontally like that.
Also, since you added the on_window1_destroy signal, you can close the
window and your
Ruby program will exit nicely (glader wrote a handler for that).

Return to Glade.

1. label1, packing -> fill: deselect expand
2. Do the same for the other two labels
3. Save

Now re-run designation.rb. You don't have to regenerate since the class and main
file will not change, only the form definition (glade) file. If you
resize you'll
see that the labels now stay small and only the text fields and combo
boxes grow,
which is nice.



----------------------- glader.rb
#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

# This class is a quick way of creating a runnable Ruby program from
# a single Glade form.
#
class Glader
	def initialize(glade_filename)
		raise ArgumentError.new("File missing: #{glade_filename}") if
!File.exist?(glade_filename)
		raise ArgumentError.new("Not a .glade file: #{glade_filename}") if
glade_filename !~ /.*\.glade/

		@glade_filename = glade_filename
		@base_filename = File.basename(@glade_filename, ".glade")
		@class_filename = @base_filename + "_glade.rb"
	end

	# Runs the ruby-glade-create-template script to create a file with a
	# class that corresponds to the form. This can be called repeatedly
	# to keep creating the class every time the .glade file changes.
	#
	def make_class
		`/usr/bin/ruby-glade-create-template #{@glade_filename} > #{@class_filename}`
		@class_filename
	end

	# Creates a main program that uses the glade class created with
	# _make_class_ and opens the window with the form. It will do nothing
	# if the main program file already exists, since the user is likely
	# to add code to this file.
	#
	def make_main
		main_filename = @base_filename + '.rb'

		if(File.exist?(main_filename))
			raise ArgumentError.new("#{main_filename} already exists, skipping")
		else
			File.open(main_filename, "w") {|f| f.write generate_main}
		end
		main_filename
	end

	private
	def generate_main()
		class_name = File.read(@class_filename).scan(/class (.*)/).to_s	
		window_id = File.read(@glade_filename).scan(/class="\w+"
id="(\w*)">$/).flatten[0]

		main =<<END

require '#{@base_filename}_glade'

class #{class_name}
	def form
		@glade["#{window_id}"]
	end

	def show
		form.show
	end

	#if this signal exists, exit nicely
	#
	def on_#{window_id}_destroy(widget)
		Gtk.main_quit
  end
end

form = #{class_name}.new("#{@glade_filename}", nil, "Application")
form.show

Gtk.main

END
	end
end

if __FILE__ == $0
	if ARGV.length != 1
		puts
		puts "This script creates a class and a main program that shows a
window using"
		puts "that class from a .glade file. It can be used to quickly
generate a functional Ruby"
		puts "program from a .glade file"
		puts
		puts "Usage: #{__FILE__} <file.glade>"
		puts
		exit
	end

	glader = Glader.new(ARGV[0])
	print "Making class file (#{glader.make_class})...\n"

	begin
		print "Making main file (#{glader.make_main})...\n"
	rescue => e
		puts e.message
	end
	puts

end