From: Conrad Schneiker/Austin/Contr/IBM <schneik@...>
Date: 2000-11-16T10:10:49+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:6388] Re: Thoughts on a Ruby browser

Hugh writes:

# I've not got into GTK yet.  Things I'd want to know about it before
# relying on it -- these will be newbie questions also:
# 
#     How big is it?

Don't know off hand. (I'd be surprised if it were not smaller than 
SourceNav. :-)

#     Can I run apps that use it on my normal desktop (be that CDE, 
#     Openwindows, or MS Windows(3.1|95|98|2k|NT) or do I have to use a 
GTK
#     (gnome?) desktop?

Yes--it's just a (somewhat sophisticated GUI) library.

#     What do I need to install it?  C compiler, C++ compiler, ???

Just C. Unlike KDE (not totally GPL on Windows yet, AFAIK) and wxWindows, 
which I think both use C++. (Sorry, I'm on my way out the door or I would 
have looked these things up first.)

# These could affect the take-up. 

Yup.

# > Well, if you were using GTK, then you could use Glade (the GTK 
GUI-based 
#                [...]
# > capabilities of Ruby/GTK probably already significantly exceeds that 
of 
# > Ruby/Tk.) This makes it possible to use the output of Glade to 
generate 
# > Ruby/GTK programs. 
# 
# But Programming Ruby has the Tk stuff in it.

Only the tip of the iceberg. You still need a good Perl/Tk reference to go 
with that. That certainly has its uses, but I think that only has a 
marginal connection the IDE issue. However, the fact that Tk is a standard 
part of the Ruby distribution *is* a major factor. (See below.)

# Bizarre question, based on ignorance: to what extent can glade be made
# to support both GUIs?  Most widgets are pretty much the same from 
platform
# to platform....

Good question, but the different property lists (names, valid values, 
etc.) would cause problems. 

By the way, there is a Tcl/Tk based editor available somewhere (apologies 
again for not having the info at hand) that could be used in the IDE 
(after conversion to Ruby/Tk, which might be a non-trivial task). So maybe 
we should just start with Ruby/Tk and do the best we can, and defer 
switching to some other GUI until after we see where the biggest problems 
in practice are, and until after we have exhausted the means of improving 
the current Ruby/Tk interface code (or whatever). We should be able to do 
at least as well as idle (Python's Tk-based IDE), which I've not 
experienced.

Conrad Schneiker
(This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)