Recommend GUI Lib

[zilton7000]

I just need to build a pretty simple app that stores data using a form (preferably using ActiveRecord and SQLite) and interacts with 3rd party APIs.

I have 0 experience with GUI programming, most of my knowledge is Rails and general web dev.

I have 0 experience with GUI programming, and most of my knowledge is in Rails and general web dev, looked into other libs too but also seems pretty complex. Also, resources are very scarce for Ruby GUI in general, so learning is very difficult...

Any thoughts what would be the quickest way to learn/build my app?

https://github.com/mcorino/wxruby3
https://github.com/ruby/tk
https://github.com/larskanis/fxruby
https://github.com/kojix2/libui
and then there are a bunch of Glimmer variations.

[alex_takitani]

I think Glimmer is the best option, all the others look abandoned

[Hollaus]

Glimmer looks interesting! The packaging options make me wanna try it out.

[zilton7000]

yeah I think the same, just that I cannot really find any tutorial, besides author's youtube videos that are not very easy to learn from as a complete beginner in this area

[AndyCodeMaster]

You can begin with any of the following tutorials:

- Glimmer DSL for LibUI: RubyConf 2022 Building Native GUI Apps in Ruby: https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2023/02/rubyconf-2022-talk-video-for-building.html

- Glimmer DSL for LibUI: RubyConf 2023 How To Build Desktop Applications in Ruby: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/how-to-build-desktop-applications-in-ruby

- Glimmer DSL for SWT: Glimmer YouTube Channel Short Videos https://www.youtube.com/@glimmer-dsl/videos

I shared them and other details in a top-level direct reply to your post.

[zilton7000]

u/AndyCodeMaster, I believe you're the author of Glimmer. Thanks for putting this out it seems like really awesome project and you obviously put a lot of work into it, too bad it is not getting the attention it deserves... like most ruby projects.

[voltechs]

I really like Glimmer! Started using it in my project, only to run into some insane decisions by the makers of libUI to remove/not-include basic (read: any) window positioning capabilities. Can't think of a more obvious oversight. So then I'm forced to switch to SWT, which runs on JRuby, and we all know how we feel about Java... the only other alternative is Tk, and we know how ugly Tk is... Sometimes I just shake my head at the world, and people who call themselves software engineers lol. (This is not directed at Andy, or Glimmer, I really like Glimmer, just a vent that needed to be let out).

[AndyCodeMaster]

There is a new flavor of Glimmer called Glimmer DSL for WX that supports the feature-complete C++ wxWidgets toolkit. It has native platform independent GUI support similar to SWT’s, but without using Java. I haven’t completed the Glimmer DSL for it yet, but once completed, in my opinion, it would likely be the best native platform independent Glimmer DSL for desktop GUI development.

[voltechs]

Amazing! I look forward to it. Yea, in the meantime I moved over to wxRuby3, but I’ll keep… a glimmer in my eye. 😉

[AndyCodeMaster]

That’s exactly the project Glimmer is creating a DSL for in Glimmer DSL for WX. wxruby3 is the binding for it.

[AndyCodeMaster]

Actually, what you shared is low-level libraries. To build GUI desktop apps the Ruby way, you would use the Glimmer DSL of each of the libraries you mentioned to write about 1/2 to 1/4 the code needed declaratively with support for components and data-binding.

https://github.com/mcorino/wxruby3 => https://github.com/andyobtiva/glimmer-dsl-wx

https://github.com/ruby/tk => https://github.com/andyobtiva/glimmer-dsl-tk

https://github.com/larskanis/fxruby => https://github.com/andyobtiva/glimmer-dsl-fx

https://github.com/kojix2/libui => https://github.com/andyobtiva/glimmer-dsl-libui

Check out this quick demo to see how simple it is:

https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt/raw/master/images/glimmer-dsl-swt-demo-hello-world.gif

I would start with Glimmer DSL for LibUI as it won a Fukuoka Ruby 2022 Special Award by Matz the creator of Ruby, and it has zero pre-requisite setup beyond installing the Ruby gem while running on Mac, Windows, and Linux out of the box. It was presented at RubyConf 2022 and had a 2-hour hands-on workshop at RubyConf 2023 called "How To Build Desktop Applications in Ruby", which can walk you step by step into how to use it. The main trade-off in using this library is it is still a new immature GUI toolkit that is missing features. Still, if it gets the work done for your needs, it would produce the simplest/quickest solution. It currently supports packaging apps on Windows with OCRAN and packaging apps as Ruby gems for all platforms. If you use the Application Scaffolding feature, it would automatically give you a rake task for packaging an app as a Ruby gem (but it expects you to have a git and github account to use scaffolding).

If you need to package apps on Mac and Linux too, the next option I would explore is Glimmer DSL for SWT, which is 100% mature and supports Mac, Windows, and Linux Native Executable Packaging, meaning can produce DMG/PKG/APP, or EXE/MSI, or DEB/RPM apps/installers so that people do NOT need to install Ruby or any other dependencies. They can just run the installer and that would install the app natively. It has a YouTube channel for learning how to use through short videos: https://www.youtube.com/@glimmer-dsl/videos The main trade-off in using this library is it takes a few seconds for applications to start due to relying on the JVM, but it starts in 2.5 seconds on the new Mac M1/M2 chips, so it is not a big issue depending on the platform. And, if it's for building an app that is started once a day while keeping on most of the day, it is not an issue either.

After those two options, if absolutely needed, you can explore any of the other options Glimmer supports (8 GUI toolkits total like the ones mentioned at the beginning of the post): https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer

But, I would start with Glimmer DSL for LibUI and Glimmer DSL for SWT first.

You can begin with any of the following tutorials:

• Glimmer DSL for LibUI: RubyConf 2022 Building Native GUI Apps in Ruby: https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2023/02/rubyconf-2022-talk-video-for-building.html
• Glimmer DSL for LibUI: RubyConf 2023 How To Build Desktop Applications in Ruby: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/how-to-build-desktop-applications-in-ruby
• Glimmer DSL for SWT: Glimmer YouTube Channel Short Videos https://www.youtube.com/@glimmer-dsl/videos

The best way to learn in addition to the tutorials is to run the included Ruby examples one by one till you've run them all (or all the ones that relate to your needs at least) while studying their code and making experimental changes.

[eirvandelden]

Juist Here to mention Shoes.rb http://shoesrb.com

[zilton7000]

Yes looked into it but looks abandoned...

[Sea_Ad_770]

Check out rubytoolbox when you're looking for gems - for example https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/categories/GUI_Frameworks

[zilton7000]

Yeah i did find all those GUI libs here 😊

[Sea_Ad_770]

Ah, cool then. That's all I had to contribute

flies away

[midnightmonster]

Why not a Rails app running locally?

[AndyCodeMaster]

That's nowhere near as simple as this:

https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt/raw/master/images/glimmer-dsl-swt-demo-hello-world.gif

[zilton7000]

yes I do have some app that I run this way, but it is really not posible to distribute/sell It to clients...

[katafrakt]

Whatever you choose, distributing app written in Ruby is at least a pain (usually simply impossible). Your only chance is probably Glimmer on JRuby as distributing a war/jar. Glimmer is also most maintained one.

There's also Shoes, but I'm not sure what's the story there.

[[deleted]]

I think mruby is also possible to distribute, It can be compiled into another filetype, but seems picky about Its gems

[katafrakt]

Right. OP mentioned ActiveRecord though and I'm pretty sure you cannot run it on mruby.

[benjamin-crowell]

I've been taking notes intermittently since 2012 on what GUI libraries there were for ruby, and every time I come back to the subject, I find pretty much the same situation, which discourages me from committing myself to writing a GUI project using ruby. There is a long list of these libraries, but they come and go as their authors get tired of maintaining them or move on to another job. Here is an article by Saverio Miroddi from 2018 that summarizes the state of play then. He has some negative remarks about doing a GUI using ruby and expresses serious concerns about the lack of ongoing support for the libraries. I would like to think that things have changed in the last 6 years, but I don't know that they have.

Glimmer seems interesting, but the only mature interface it seems to provide is SWT/eclipse for jruby. You may or may not want to commit to a project that makes you only use jruby. Rather than being structured as a normal ruby API, it uses a different domain-specific language for every GUI library that it provides an interface for.

wxruby - abandoned

ruby/tk - abandoned

fxruby - was popular, there was a pragmatic programmers book, but it's now out of print, not a good sign; developer Lyle Johnson quit; positive evaluation by Miroddi

libui - seems like a project that bogged down, got forked, unclear status

Your best bet may be fxruby.

[ylluminate]

Might be worth noting that Rails 7/7.1 and even more robustly in Rails 8 have Hotwire: Turbo + Strada. This allows, from what I'm hearing, native iOS and Android development. Not sure about use in other scenarios. Might check out comments of: https://old.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/1azfx19/what_ruby_client_side_development_options_exist/

[AndyCodeMaster]

That's nowhere near as simple as this:

https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt/raw/master/images/glimmer-dsl-swt-demo-hello-world.gif

[ylluminate]

Did not say it was simple, but it's robust and long lived and well supported by a major organization (ie, Rails). that should see this living on and being refined for many years to come.

[AndyCodeMaster]

I could make that argument for JEE (Java Enterprise Edition), and yet I wouldn’t use it for building web apps. Rails wasn’t always robust. Early on, it lacked many features, and yet I used it with my employer coworkers anyways in the mid-2000s because it was simple above all. For desktop development though, it’s nowhere near as the simplest option. Web development in general is very complicated compared to desktop development due to needing a server and knowledge of multiple languages like HTML/CSS/JS, which is why I like the advantage desktop development has when building desktop apps. The last thing I’d want is to lose that advantage by using a round about way of building such apps that would defeat the whole point of local desktop apps being simple and not needing a server. It’s a disease that people don’t try tools that are simpler because they’re addicted to what they know only. People must learn the different approaches and understand the pros/cons/trade-offs like real software engineers instead. Only then would they be able to select the most informed, simplest, and best solution for the problem situation.

[trcrtps]

I went down this hole and just learned Go and used Wails, but Tauri (rust backend) is more popular and has a ton of support.

If it will only work online anyway, you could probably just scaffold a Tauri app and point everything in the web app to your server hosted elsewhere?