RIGS

RIGS stands for "Ruby Interface to GNUstep" and is library that allows programmers to develop GNUstep applications using the remarkable Ruby language

[ Introduction | State | Documentation | Download RIGS | Related links ]

Introduction

Ruby is a remarkably well designed OO scripting language written by Yukihiro Matsumoto (a.k.a. Matz). Ruby has taken the best of many modern languages (Perl regexp, Eiffel syntax, SmallTalk pure OO approach, Objective C categories and protocols) and put them together. The result is a fast and lightweight interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming.

Given its similiraties with Objective C and Smalltalk it soon occured to me that Ruby would be a perfect fit as a modern and high level scripting language for the GNUstep environment.

Just to whet your appetite here is a minimal GNustep application that opens up a simple Window.

As you can see it is very similar to writing the same application in Objective C so Objective C programmers will immediately fell at home.

In addition there are a number of features in RIGS that makes programmers life easier: Ruby strings are automatically mapped on GNUstep strings and vice-versa. The same applies for Ruby numbers and Objective C NSNumbers


require 'rigs'
require 'Foundation'
require 'AppKit'

# Application delegate
class NSWindowTest

    def initialize 
	@window = NSWindow.alloc
    end

    def applicationWillFinishLaunching (notification)
	rect = NSRect.new(0, 0, 400, 200)
	styleMask = NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask |
	    NSMiniaturizableWindowMask | NSResizableWindowMask

	@window.initWithContentRect_styleMask_backing_defer \
	    (rect, styleMask, NSBackingStoreRetained, false)
	@window.setTitle("GNUstep GUI working from Ruby")
    end
  
    def applicationDidFinishLaunching (notification)
	@window.center()
	@window.makeKeyAndOrderFront(self)
    end

    def applicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed (application)
	true
    end
    
end

  
# main
application = NSApplication.sharedApplication
# Application delegateclassNSWindowTestdefinitialize @window = NSWindow.alloc
    enddefapplicationWillFinishLaunching (notification)
        rect = NSRect.new(0, 0, 400, 200)
        styleMask = NSTitledWindowMask | NSClosableWindowMask |
            NSMiniaturizableWindowMask | NSResizableWindowMask

        @window.initWithContentRect_styleMask_backing_defer \
            (rect, styleMask, NSBackingStoreRetained, false)
        @window.setTitle("GNUstep GUI working from Ruby")
    enddefapplicationDidFinishLaunching (notification)
        @window.center()
        @window.makeKeyAndOrderFront(self)
    enddefapplicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed (application)
        true
    endend# main
application = NSApplication.sharedApplication
windowTest = NSWindowTest.new

application.setDelegate(windowTest)

application.run

Another interesting feature that is worth mentionning is that RIGS is entirely dynamic. It means that RIGS interact with the Objective C runtime to automatically discover the classes and methods available in the version of GNUstep base and gui libraries installed on your machine. So there is no need to recompile RIGS each time a GNUstep method has been modified. Similarly you can require your own Objective C libraries on the fly in Ruby and immediately get all the classes/methods available.

State

Currently RIGS is very usable though far from bullet proof. You'll find some real applications written in the Testing and Examples directories of the source tree showing that RIGS can really be used on a day to day basis.

Documentation

For installation help, please refer to the INSTALL file included in the RIGS package.

There is not much documentation about using RIGS because once you know Ruby and GNUstep, then scripting GNUstep applications with Ruby is really straightforward. Simply reading some Ruby sample code in the RIGS Testing and Examples directory will get you up to speed in no time.

Laurent Julliard, the author of RIGS will be happy to help you and welcomes your contribution (bug fix, code,...)

Download RIGS

The last offically released version can be download here (look for gnustep-ruby files).

You can also get a recent snapshot of RIGS using GNUstep's public CVS (module ruby). Please see the GNUstep project page for more information.

RIGS

Contents

Introduction

State

Documentation

Download RIGS

Related links