5 Dec 2004 superant   » (Journeyer)

More development of rwdtinker. http://rubyforge.org/projects/rwdapplications/

I have accidentely stumbled on some very interesting ways to develop software for RubyWebDialogs.

I split the source code and the gui code into atomic parts and use init.rb to merge the parts together.

With the newest framework I am using the last couple of days, I am able to ship a "plugin" or as I calling them "applet" that can be dropped into a directory and installed automatically. Also uninstalled. I am calling this framework Tinker, so the core program I call rwdtinker. My wife, Charlotte. suggested the name. It relates to the the "Tinker Toys" that has blocks and dowls and shapes that can be assembled by children and take different shapes. Without the word toy, it reminds us if the older English meaning of "a person who repairs pots and household devices by soldering and hammering.

The delivered applet is setup in the required directory structure with code configueration gui including help files location of documentation rwd_files = where documention for the applet can go. installed = a inf file that lists the manifest of files

This package is zipped up and uploaded as a file like rwdashedule-0.2.zip

The enduser who has the rwdtinker program drops the zip file into a directory called zips. I have parts of rwdtinker now (for Linux) that can install it automatically and remove it (based on the .inf file)

I believe most of the framework works on XP and Mac now. The zip file would have to be manually unzipped by XP or Mac users today, but there is supposed to be a crossplatform ruby way to remove the files (just using FileUtils.rm) that should replace the Linux method I am using now (rm unix command called from rwdtinker) Also there is a module called zipfile that someone has developed for Ruby. I have not figured how to use it yet, (this whould work to install on all platforms)

It is exciting that this framework works toward 2 computer science "Holy Grails" reusable code, by just drop in and play, and with RWD, cross platform GUI I also like that people wanting to make a simple little application would not have to think much about the GUI. RWD is not much more complicated than formatting text output. Also since RWD is so light weight, people who are not allowed to install "software" on their computer, can probably still use RWD, by dropping it into a directory on the computer they have write access to.

I understand RWD is weak on intense graphics and high interaction. Some day that might be addressed with more use of javascript.

This note was sent to the author of RubyWebDialogs http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubywebdialogs/index.html

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