From: Logan Barnett <logustus@...>
Date: 2008-09-11T02:07:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Is Ruby good at GUI develop?

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On Sep 10, 2008, at 7:02 AM, Jason Cameron wrote:

> Wow.  Quite the storm!  Oh well.
>
> I guess I should clarify a bit.
>
> I _am_ using monkeybars (and therefore NetBeans) to create my GUI.  =20=

> It's
> pretty good.  My second choice would be Glade(Is there a way for =20
> Glade 3
> to be used?).  It's still a little hit or miss though in NetBeans.  I
> put some controls down and the rest _move_ ... even after I put a =20
> panel
> in.  Of course it could be that I'm an idiot and I don't know how to
> make a GUI with it. :p  The more I use it the more I'll get used to
> those quirks.
>

By default in Netbeans, all panels, frames, dialogs, and other =20
containers are set to "Free Design", which is the GroupLayout. =20
GroupLayout is very quirky, and takes some time to learn. For forms of =20=

any complexity, you may want to use a different layout (right click on =20=

the container in question, and you can set the new layout). If you're =20=

looking for something akin to Visual Studio's absolute layout, you can =20=

set the layout to null (Null Layout). This isn't cross-platform =20
friendly, and the form won't move/stretch when the user goes to resize =20=

it, but at least it'll get you going. You can also isolate some =20
components by putting them in another panel, and different panels, =20
even if nested, can have their own layout. Netbeans also has a handy =20
feature where you can select one or more components, and right click, =20=

and select "Enclose In..." and select a JPanel.

GroupLayout does some really cool things, but sometimes it's like =20
working with a mule. It's very tricky.

> I also don't care if the GUI itself is written in Ruby.   The GUI =20
> could
> be written in LOGO for all I care.  I just want to write an app, =20
> click a
> button and have some Ruby code execute behind it.
>
> Q: If I write a swing GUI in NetBeans can I then copy that somehow =20
> to a
> ruby project(using Monkeybars somehow)?  Or do I have to start from
> scratch every time.  I=92m also not entirely sure how to create a =20
> project
> with _two_ or more forms.
>
We've got a whole more than two forms going in some of our projects:
http://www.happycamperstudios.com/monkeybars/charlotte%20interface.png

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but I'd gather that you =20
created a Ruby project. Unfortunately, Netbeans doesn't support a true =20=

JRuby project, where you can freely dance between JRuby and Java. The =20=

next best thing is to make your project a Java project. Here you can =20
have Ruby files but also Java files and forms. You'll need a =20
Main.java, which kicks off JRuby, as well as the JRuby complete jar. =20
We've got a tutorial on setting a lot of this stuff up in our =20
tutorials section: http://monkeybars.rubyforge.org/tutorials.html


> My GUI first app is either going to be a pared down media library/grep
> tool for people who like to download (open source of course!) shows =20=

> and
> ask themselves, =93Do I download that show? Or do I have it already?=94 =
 =20
> I'm
> using JRuby, Monkeybars, NetBeans and Postgres.  I'm not too sure =20
> about
> Activerecord yet and I find SQL rather trivial so I'm accessing the db
> directly.
>

We have a couple of internal Monkeybars project that need their own =20
local database. We used Derby + ActiveRecord for this. While I didn't =20=

work a ton on these projects myself, I know we'd be more than happy to =20=

share what we did to get it working. Derby is SQLite in Java, so it's =20=

just a file that you can load as your database, and there's no need =20
for anyone to set up a full on database server on their machine.

> My first Ruby script (which made me fall in love with Ruby) transcoded
> all of the avi files in a directory to 320x200 in _1_ line of code.
>
> I'm just trying to have fun. :p
> M
> =3D:)
> --=20
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>


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