Recent Posts by Lyle Johnson

Topic: FXRuby / CJK Input?

There has been a lot of discussion recently on the FOX GUI Users mailing list concerning internationalized input in general, and that would be the best place to ask about this; it’s just not a topic that I know anything about. What I can say is that if the FOX library supports the input of Korean characters, then FXRuby should also be able to do so (and if FOX can’t, then FXRuby can’t either).

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

Tom, I did a Google search for “hardy heron fxruby” and found this thread from the Ubuntu forums. The solution seems to be installing the “libxrandr-dev” package (i.e. “sudo apt-get install libxrandr-dev”) before attempting to install FXRuby.

Please let me know if this does (or doesn’t) fix the problem. I don’t currently have a Hardy Heron installation to experiment, but can set one up in a VM if necessary.

Topic: FXRuby / Erratum #31625

Just a quick note concerning erratum #31625, which has to do with an error message you might see when running the code examples from the book. If you see an error message like:

wrong argument type Hash (expected Data) (TypeError)

it likely indicates that you’re using an old version of FXRuby and need to upgrade.

Topic: FXRuby / interesting title but...

The book is looking great by the way!

Thanks, Alan! The book is now officially released (well, I hope I’m not jumping the gun by saying that) and I should be getting my print copy of it the next day or so. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Topic: FXRuby / JRuby

No. Like any other C/C++-based extension for Ruby, FXRuby won’t run on JRuby (or IronRuby, for that matter). I am interested in seeing whether I can get it to work with Rubinius at some point in the future.

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

As of the newly released FXRuby 1.6.14, there is now a binary gem for Mac OS X (Leopard). This gem contains everything you need to get started working with FXRuby on OS X, and doesn’t depend on MacPorts or otherwise requiring you to compile anything. Just type:

sudo gem install fxruby

and that should do the trick. If you run into problems, please report them here or, preferably, on the FXRuby users mailing list mentioned in the book.

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

Eric, the book has already gone to press and so it’s too late to add any additional instructions about building FXRuby using the stuff that ships with Leopard. However, it’s never too late to improve the online installation documentation to include such information.

One of the problems with building everything from scratch is that there are so many dependencies for a comprehensive build of FXRuby. There’s FOX, of course, plus the image support libraries (libjpeg, libtiff and libpng), none of which ship with Leopard. But you’re right that for end users who don’t need all of those development and build tools, we need a more streamlined distribution (similar to the binary gem for Windows).

Topic: FXRuby / GUI Components

Chad, the book has already gone to press so we can’t get it into this editio, but this sounds like something I could add to the FXRuby web site at some point. Are you thinking in terms of a graphical display, e.g. screenshots of all of the widgets?

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

Just wanted to post this info here as well. As of the latest update to the ruby port in MacPorts, FXRuby builds properly on Leopard. Read about it here.

Topic: FXRuby / why fx?

I’m not sure who you’re posing your question to. Are you asking why I (the author) wrote this book, or why the publishers decided to publish it?

I got involved with FOX’s development pretty early on, because Jeroen van der Zijp (FOX’s creator) and I were co-workers. Once I discovered the Ruby programming language (in 2000), I started working on FXRuby and the rest is history.

I don’t presume to speak for the publishers, but I think they would say that they decided to publish the book because I submitted a proposal and they decided it was a good business idea for them to pursue. They have previously published a book on QtRuby, by the way. I believe that if you or some other author were interested in writing about one of the other GUI toolkits for Ruby, they’d be interested in hearing from you.

Topic: FXRuby / Distributing the application

The FXRuby binaries that I distribute for Windows statically link in the FOX library, so yes, building a Windows executable with exerb pulls in the FXRuby library, which in turn includes FOX. As I noted earlier, this used to work like a charm with exerb and as far as I know it still does.

On other platforms you would need to make sure that FOX (and other dependencies) are statically linked into FXRuby, or otherwise make sure that they get included in the bundle.

Topic: FXRuby / Distributing the application

I forgot to add: If you try one or both of these approaches and run into any snags, please post here or (even better) to the FXRuby users’ mailing list. For that matter, if you try it and it works fine, we’d like to know that too. ;)

Topic: FXRuby / Distributing the application

An excellent question, Stephen, and it’s really just a specific instance of the more general question of how to distribute any Ruby application. There are basically two different scenarios I’m familiar with.

If you’re distributing the application to people who you already expect to have a working Ruby installation, the easiest path might be to package your application as a Ruby Gem that in turn depends on the FXRuby gem. Folks are most familiar with the use of RubyGems to package libraries (such as FXRuby itself), but it can also be used to package applications (such as Rake). Consult the RubyGems documentation for tips on how to write your Gem specification for such packages.

If you’re looking for a more all-inclusive solution that doesn’t depend on an existing Ruby installation, then yes, a tool like RubyScript2exe (http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe/) or Exerb (http://exerb.sourceforge.jp/index.en.html) is probably the best choice. I and others have used exerb with FXRuby applications in the past, and it works like a charm. I haven’t tried it lately, but I would expect that it still works fine.

Topic: FXRuby / screendump artefacts

Thanks for the report, Hans. I’m not sure why figure 11.10 looks that way in the PDF, because the original source image (a TIFF, not a JPEG) looks fine. I will ask Dave and Andy if they have any suggestions.

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

Ludovic, the FXRuby installed via MacPorts (i.e. rb-fxruby) is indeed “paired” with the Ruby installed from MacPorts, the one found under /opt/local. Your other Ruby installations (either the one that came with Leopard, or your installation of Ruby 1.9) aren’t going to be able to see and use the FXRuby from MacPorts, but this isn’t an FXRuby-specific issue. (If you arrange your PATH setting such that /opt/local/bin comes before /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin, you wouldn’t need to prepend that extra line to the FXRuby examples.)

Topic: FXRuby / Fxruby installation

David, I haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet, but I am going to try to get some time on a Leopard box as several people have reported issues installing FXRuby on Leopard. Can you tell me a little more about the manner in which it “didn’t work” on MacPorts? Ditto for the Gem installation.

For the most part, I’m trying to keep more detailed installation instructions, and explanations of things that can go wrong, on the web site (as noted in section 1.1 of the book); but perhaps it would help to have some more detail in the book.

I am considering building a binary Gem of FXRuby for Leopard, one that would be compatible with the built-in Ruby. The problem is that a lot of people (myself included) will not necessarily use that built-in Ruby; they’ll want to try out Ruby 1.9, or a more recent patch level of 1.8.6, or whatever. We’ll have to see what makes the most sense.

Topic: FXRuby / Updates for B2.0

Version B2.0 of the beta book has just been released. Many of the problems reported by early readers have already been addressed; I’ve blogged a a little bit about what changed between B1.0 and this version here, but please feel free to ask if you’re not sure about something that has changed.

Topic: FXRuby / Availability of images

Are you just talking about the image files (JPEG, PNG, etc.) used in the example programs? If so, all of those are provided in the source code tarball for the book—see this page for the download links. I don’t believe you actually have to purchase the book before you can access that link.

If you’re referring to something else, please elaborate! If the files are used in the book, I should be able to get copies for you one way or another.

Topic: FXRuby / Layout problems with FXSwitcher

The next update of the beta book should include the chapter on “Managing Layouts”, which has a discussion of FOX’s deferred layout mechanism. I think what your code might need is an additional call to the switcher’s recalc() method after you import the additional photos or maximize the window.

Topic: FXRuby / Problem with understanding the PhotoView class

Thomas, you are a fast reader! Glad you figured it out on your own, but I’ll make a note to myself that that could be clearer in the book’s discussion of the code.

Topic: FXRuby / beta version of book?

Thanks for asking! Hopefully, we’ll be able to do that soon. Please keep an eye on the news feed here at the Pragmatic Programmers site, or subscribe to my blog for announcements on the availability of a beta release.

Topic: FXRuby / interesting title but...

There’s no question that current technology allows for some pretty sophisticated web-based user interfaces, but I think that traditional GUI applications will be around for awhile. There are still a number of environments where, due to security concerns, web access is either restricted or non-existent. Also, there are some kinds of applications (such as some 3-D modeling and visualization tools) that couldn’t be easily implemented as web applications—not yet, anyways. ;)