5 ms·

Cross platform desktop apps in Ruby, HTML and JS

99 points by duck 16y ago

ddemchuk 16y ago
I got really excited until I saw that it didn't support Windows yet and required Ruby 1.9. Nice looking setup at least though. Anyone know how soon Windows support is expected to arrive?
- alttab 16y ago
  Good luck having that one perform. Ruby on Windows is slower than the dog-dust in my mother's urn above the fireplace. Tongue in cheek aside - this would be really cool if it actually ran in a browser. Linking to external content, having resource based URLs, etc - all the good things about web development - are taken away once you leave the browser.
  - costan 16y ago
    I wouldn't expect performance to be a problem. For computational tasks, Ruby works just as fine on Windows as on a UNIX platform. Windows perf suffers because (1) in some rare cases, the needed primitives aren't provided by the kernel, and (2) Windows does some things differently, and Ruby library authors don't have the incentives to design and maintain a separate codepath for Windows. The issues above don't usually arise in desktop applications. They're seen most often in server code -- fork is missing and that sucks, asynchronous I/O works differently, file monitoring and pipes also work differently, etc.
- maccman 16y ago
  Bowline is being developed for Taskforce (http://taskforceapp.com http://taskforceapp.com), a commercial application, so Windows support is definitely coming. Estimation... well, I think we'll have support by September.
j23tom 16y ago
You could also use Mono. You will write in real language and it has nice IDE http://monodevelop.com/ http://monodevelop.com/
jamesbritt 16y ago
Nice. Wonder what's needed for packaging and distribution. Does the end user have to have Ruby 1.9 installed already?
- maccman 16y ago
  No, the end user doesn't need anything extra installed. Ruby 1.9 (and WebKit if needed) is bundled.
  - jamesbritt 16y ago
    Oh, very nice.
  - LaPingvino 16y ago
    Will there be some deb/rpm packaging tool included?
    - maccman 16y ago
      There will be. At the moment though, linux support is very basic. There's no automatic packaging. When it comes to packaging and distribution, the mac version is more developed.
  - dasboot 16y ago
    How, if at all, are you going to protect the ruby source code?
    - maccman 16y ago
      I'e written something called rbyte which byte compiles Ruby 1.9.2 code: http://github.com/maccman/rbyte http://github.com/maccman/rbyte Eventually I'll integrate it into Bowline so your source code will get compiled automatically.
      - dasboot 16y ago
        Thanks for your answer. I'm very excited about the project, esp. with a future server sync api (as mentioned in the roadmap). Perhaps I then could finally write a decent evernote client for linux. :)
jister 16y ago
If it doesn't support Windows then it shouldn't be called "Cross Platform", no?
- chc 16y ago
  No, the definition of "cross-platform" is not "supports Windows." It works on two different platforms, so it's cross-platform. Much like how Photoshop is a cross-platform application even though it doesn't support Linux.
  - bruceboughton 16y ago
    But given that Windows is still the dominant platform in the desktop space it would be disingenuous to claim this it's "cross-platform" if it's not coming to Windows soon.
    - kalid 16y ago
      Agreed. I was going to look into it, but not having windows support means you block 90% of your market. It's deceptive because saying "cross platform" to a developer (especially for a desktop app) means "runs on most devices". Using the term otherwise is a semantic game.
    - chc 16y ago
      It isn't disingenuous for them to use a word exactly as it is defined. If this were a framework that allowed normal Linux apps to run natively (i.e. not in X11) under OS X and they said it allowed "cross-platform compatibility between Linux and OS X," would you say that's disingenuous too? Calling it disingenuous seems disingenuous to me — just because it would be nice if it did Windows doesn't mean Windows support is a requirement to be cross-platform. At any rate, the Bowline site says Windows support is coming soon, so I don't see the problem at all.
vena 16y ago
Can anyone give any opinions on this vs Appcelerator?
- voidfiles 16y ago
  Its just a ruby container for webkit. So Appcelerator, or I think you are talking about their titanium container, is just like this. The basic idea is that you bundle a browser, and then using your programming language of choice, you can create APIs that are available inside JavaScript. So, you can also probably create functionality in ruby, that can then be accessed in JavaScript.
- maccman 16y ago
  Appcelerator Titanium is more of a platform than a framework. I guess it's like comparing CGI.rb to Rails. The other major issue with Ruby support on Titanium is that Ruby 1.9 isn't supported, c exts aren't supported, and Threads aren't supported. In other words the UI locks up whenever you call out to Ruby. Bowline used to sit on top of Titanium, but I made it standalone for those reasons.
obama012369 16y ago
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voidfiles 16y ago
I love that the idea of cross-breed HTML/JS/? is coming to the forefront, and this might be a great solution one day. But, right now there are many such projects. They all fall on a spectrum from super specialized, like this project, and full blown browser. If you found this interesting you should also check out. http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidium.org/ http://fluidium.org/ http://prism.mozillalabs.com/ http://prism.mozillalabs.com/ http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ NativeHost described here: http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/nativehost-run-your-cappuccino-applications-on-the-desktop/ http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/nativehost-run-your... I really would love to know if there are any other apps like this out their, I am trying to catalog them all. I think containers like these have a big future.
- proee 16y ago
  http://www.appcelerator.com/ http://www.appcelerator.com/
- nkh 16y ago
  Do any of these have anything close to the table Grid support you can get with a .net control. It seems like there isn't a good way to load a ton of data in a table (100 K +) and work with within an app built with HTML and JS yet. Am I wrong? I hope I am ;)
  - jonah 16y ago
    Not exactly, but have you seen the Spry stuff? I've used it for (admittedly smaller) datasets and been impressed. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html
vault_ 16y ago
Well, I can't get the initial installation to work right, because access is denied to a zip file it tries to download off of AWS (I don't know why it's necessary or denied). I do think, however, that this is a step in the right direction. In my opinion, GUI apps on Linux are for the most part extremely uninspired, and in spite of popular opinions to the contrary, I still prefer to use a native application in lieu of a web-based one. I think that webkit could be an awesome platform for desktop apps, both in ease of development and quality of finished product. I don't think that this is quite a big enough step towards that though. For one, it makes the developer write html, css, and javascript. This means that ultimately the applications produced aren't going to really feel native on any platform. Rather, they'll feel like quick web app running in its own window. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it could be better. In my ideal world, this would be somewhat closer to a traditional widget toolkit, but built on top of webkit. It would still be html and js at its core, but from a developers perspective it would be closer to using something like SproutCore. As I said though, I can't get it to run properly, so I may be way off base from just looking at the code for the sample applications. I think it may also be possible to get what I'm describing on top of Bowline. There's definitely some potential in this area though, and I'm going to mess with it some more and keep and eye on it.
thibaut_barrere 16y ago
I'm wondering if I can use HAML with this. If Windows support really comes, it would be very handy as well.
BudVVeezer 16y ago
No offense, but web tech on the desktop has been tried before (a la Java) and the user experience sucked everywhere. I'm not convinced this will be any different from the user's perspective.

99 points by duck 16y ago

I got really excited until I saw that it didn't support Windows yet and required Ruby 1.9. Nice looking setup at least though. Anyone know how soon Windows support is expected to arrive?

alttab 16y ago
Good luck having that one perform. Ruby on Windows is slower than the dog-dust in my mother's urn above the fireplace. Tongue in cheek aside - this would be really cool if it actually ran in a browser. Linking to external content, having resource based URLs, etc - all the good things about web development - are taken away once you leave the browser.
- costan 16y ago
  I wouldn't expect performance to be a problem. For computational tasks, Ruby works just as fine on Windows as on a UNIX platform. Windows perf suffers because (1) in some rare cases, the needed primitives aren't provided by the kernel, and (2) Windows does some things differently, and Ruby library authors don't have the incentives to design and maintain a separate codepath for Windows. The issues above don't usually arise in desktop applications. They're seen most often in server code -- fork is missing and that sucks, asynchronous I/O works differently, file monitoring and pipes also work differently, etc.
maccman 16y ago
Bowline is being developed for Taskforce (http://taskforceapp.com http://taskforceapp.com), a commercial application, so Windows support is definitely coming. Estimation... well, I think we'll have support by September.

j23tom 16y ago

You could also use Mono. You will write in real language and it has nice IDE http://monodevelop.com/ http://monodevelop.com/

jamesbritt 16y ago

Nice. Wonder what's needed for packaging and distribution. Does the end user have to have Ruby 1.9 installed already?

maccman 16y ago
No, the end user doesn't need anything extra installed. Ruby 1.9 (and WebKit if needed) is bundled.
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Oh, very nice.
- LaPingvino 16y ago
  Will there be some deb/rpm packaging tool included?
  - maccman 16y ago
    There will be. At the moment though, linux support is very basic. There's no automatic packaging. When it comes to packaging and distribution, the mac version is more developed.
- dasboot 16y ago
  How, if at all, are you going to protect the ruby source code?
  - maccman 16y ago
    I'e written something called rbyte which byte compiles Ruby 1.9.2 code: http://github.com/maccman/rbyte http://github.com/maccman/rbyte Eventually I'll integrate it into Bowline so your source code will get compiled automatically.
    - dasboot 16y ago
      Thanks for your answer. I'm very excited about the project, esp. with a future server sync api (as mentioned in the roadmap). Perhaps I then could finally write a decent evernote client for linux. :)

jister 16y ago

If it doesn't support Windows then it shouldn't be called "Cross Platform", no?

chc 16y ago
No, the definition of "cross-platform" is not "supports Windows." It works on two different platforms, so it's cross-platform. Much like how Photoshop is a cross-platform application even though it doesn't support Linux.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  But given that Windows is still the dominant platform in the desktop space it would be disingenuous to claim this it's "cross-platform" if it's not coming to Windows soon.
  - kalid 16y ago
    Agreed. I was going to look into it, but not having windows support means you block 90% of your market. It's deceptive because saying "cross platform" to a developer (especially for a desktop app) means "runs on most devices". Using the term otherwise is a semantic game.
  - chc 16y ago
    It isn't disingenuous for them to use a word exactly as it is defined. If this were a framework that allowed normal Linux apps to run natively (i.e. not in X11) under OS X and they said it allowed "cross-platform compatibility between Linux and OS X," would you say that's disingenuous too? Calling it disingenuous seems disingenuous to me — just because it would be nice if it did Windows doesn't mean Windows support is a requirement to be cross-platform. At any rate, the Bowline site says Windows support is coming soon, so I don't see the problem at all.

vena 16y ago

Can anyone give any opinions on this vs Appcelerator?

voidfiles 16y ago
Its just a ruby container for webkit. So Appcelerator, or I think you are talking about their titanium container, is just like this. The basic idea is that you bundle a browser, and then using your programming language of choice, you can create APIs that are available inside JavaScript. So, you can also probably create functionality in ruby, that can then be accessed in JavaScript.
maccman 16y ago
Appcelerator Titanium is more of a platform than a framework. I guess it's like comparing CGI.rb to Rails. The other major issue with Ruby support on Titanium is that Ruby 1.9 isn't supported, c exts aren't supported, and Threads aren't supported. In other words the UI locks up whenever you call out to Ruby. Bowline used to sit on top of Titanium, but I made it standalone for those reasons.

obama012369 16y ago

Dear friends, ok?Is now a commercial,Very pleased to recommend this product: http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s55 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s55 【T-shirt】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s13 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s13 【 MTB】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=n49 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=n49 【Jordan 2010】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s44 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s44 【Watch】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s46 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s46 【Jewerly】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s45 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s45 【Sunglass】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s60 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s60 【Jean】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s53 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s53 【handbags】 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s68 http://wowcool.org/productlist.asp?id=s68 【Jacket】 Please is assured buy our product,We seek quality first the prestige first customer oriented,Thank you, old or new client of our trust and love We will continue to launch our new product,To meet the growing needs of clients continuously,I wish you a happy life,happy shoping, thank you

voidfiles 16y ago

I love that the idea of cross-breed HTML/JS/? is coming to the forefront, and this might be a great solution one day. But, right now there are many such projects. They all fall on a spectrum from super specialized, like this project, and full blown browser. If you found this interesting you should also check out. http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidium.org/ http://fluidium.org/ http://prism.mozillalabs.com/ http://prism.mozillalabs.com/ http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ http://www.adobe.com/products/air/ NativeHost described here: http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/nativehost-run-your-cappuccino-applications-on-the-desktop/ http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/nativehost-run-your... I really would love to know if there are any other apps like this out their, I am trying to catalog them all. I think containers like these have a big future.

proee 16y ago
http://www.appcelerator.com/ http://www.appcelerator.com/
nkh 16y ago
Do any of these have anything close to the table Grid support you can get with a .net control. It seems like there isn't a good way to load a ton of data in a table (100 K +) and work with within an app built with HTML and JS yet. Am I wrong? I hope I am ;)
- jonah 16y ago
  Not exactly, but have you seen the Spry stuff? I've used it for (admittedly smaller) datasets and been impressed. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/home.html

vault_ 16y ago

Well, I can't get the initial installation to work right, because access is denied to a zip file it tries to download off of AWS (I don't know why it's necessary or denied). I do think, however, that this is a step in the right direction. In my opinion, GUI apps on Linux are for the most part extremely uninspired, and in spite of popular opinions to the contrary, I still prefer to use a native application in lieu of a web-based one. I think that webkit could be an awesome platform for desktop apps, both in ease of development and quality of finished product. I don't think that this is quite a big enough step towards that though. For one, it makes the developer write html, css, and javascript. This means that ultimately the applications produced aren't going to really feel native on any platform. Rather, they'll feel like quick web app running in its own window. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it could be better. In my ideal world, this would be somewhat closer to a traditional widget toolkit, but built on top of webkit. It would still be html and js at its core, but from a developers perspective it would be closer to using something like SproutCore. As I said though, I can't get it to run properly, so I may be way off base from just looking at the code for the sample applications. I think it may also be possible to get what I'm describing on top of Bowline. There's definitely some potential in this area though, and I'm going to mess with it some more and keep and eye on it.

thibaut_barrere 16y ago

I'm wondering if I can use HAML with this. If Windows support really comes, it would be very handy as well.

BudVVeezer 16y ago

No offense, but web tech on the desktop has been tried before (a la Java) and the user experience sucked everywhere. I'm not convinced this will be any different from the user's perspective.