# \[ANN\] FXIrb 0.14 - a Win32 GUI wrapper around IRB **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [18 February 2005 22:34 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603 "2005-02-18T22:34:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Martin\_DeMello1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Martin\_DeMello1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Martin_DeMello1)\ **Post date:** [18 February 2005 22:34 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/1 "2005-02-18T22:34:46Z")
- What?   FXIrb is a simple FXText wrapper around IRB, giving it useful features   like a decent GUI font and cut/paste capability. The current version   is being developed under Windows; I'll look at crossplatform operation   in a later release - Why?   IRB in the standard Windows terminal is quite painful to use. (The   linux terminal is a lot more capable, which is why I'm concentrating   my development efforts on Windows right now). Thanks to Marco Fraillis   for the initial Windows port, and to Gilles Filippini for starting the   project. - Where?   [http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group\_id=501](http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=501) - Now what?   This is a rather alpha release; I'd mostly like people to bang on it   and see what functionality they feel is missing. My current top   priority is multiline editing, but I'm open to feature requests,   suggestions and (particularly!) contributions. If the next version   looks good, I'm going to work with Curt and Laurent and make a proper   FreeRIDE plugin out of it. martin ---
**Author:** ![Navindra\_Umanee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d78d45/32.png) [@Navindra\_Umanee](https://rubytalk.org/u/Navindra_Umanee)\ **Post date:** [18 February 2005 22:43 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/2 "2005-02-18T22:43:25Z")
I have to admit I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people here who use Ruby on the Windows platform... many of them Ruby experts like yourself. I somehow have this image of open source languages like Perl/Python/Ruby mostly thriving on the Unix platform. I mean sure, there are Windows ports, but those are usually assumed to be second-rate. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Windows people have to hack software too. I would imagine they would prefer more official development environments with fancy polished GUIs and the such, but hey why not Ruby. Cheers, Navin. > **···** > > Martin DeMello \ wrote: > > >   FXIrb is a simple FXText wrapper around IRB, giving it useful features > >   like a decent GUI font and cut/paste capability. The current version > >   is being developed under Windows; I'll look at crossplatform operation > >   in a later release ---
**Author:** ![James\_Britt6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@James\_Britt6](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Britt6)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 01:26 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/3 "2005-02-19T01:26:53Z")
Martin DeMello wrote: > - What? >   FXIrb is a simple FXText wrapper around IRB, giving it useful features >   like a decent GUI font and cut/paste capability. The current version >   is being developed under Windows; I'll look at crossplatform operation >   in a later release > > - Why? >   IRB in the standard Windows terminal is quite painful to use. (The >   linux terminal is a lot more capable, which is why I'm concentrating >   my development efforts on Windows right now). Thanks to Marco Fraillis >   for the initial Windows port, and to Gilles Filippini for starting the >   project. I confess I am not a frequent user of irb; I prefer to use vim and execute code straight through the editor. But I tend to do a great deal of mundane work on Win2k using the cmd shell. What features are missing that you want to put into fxirb? Or, put another way, what do find so painful about the cmd shell? Thanks, James ---
**Author:** ![Curt\_Hibbs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/2acd7d/32.png) [@Curt\_Hibbs3](https://rubytalk.org/u/Curt_Hibbs3)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 05:54 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/4 "2005-02-19T05:54:35Z")
Martin DeMello wrote: > If the next version >   looks good, I'm going to work with Curt and Laurent and make a proper >   FreeRIDE plugin out of it. I'm looking forward to it! Curt ---
**Author:** ![Matt\_Mower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/fbc32d/32.png) [@Matt\_Mower](https://rubytalk.org/u/Matt_Mower)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 21:47 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/5 "2005-02-19T21:47:57Z")
Hi Martin, > **···** > > On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:34:46 +0900, Martin DeMello \ wrote: > > > - What? > >   FXIrb is a simple FXText wrapper around IRB, giving it useful features > > - Now what? > >   This is a rather alpha release; I'd mostly like people to bang on it > >   and see what functionality they feel is missing. My current top > >   priority is multiline editing, but I'm open to feature requests, > >   suggestions and (particularly!) contributions. If the next version > >   looks good, I'm going to work with Curt and Laurent and make a proper > >   FreeRIDE plugin out of it. > > This is great. I am one of those people who seems to get regular > coredumps from Irb because of readline problems so I'll be using this > a lot. > > NIce work. > > M > > -- > Matt Mower :: [http://matt.blogs.it/](http://matt.blogs.it/) ---
**Author:** ![Glenn\_Parker1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Glenn\_Parker1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Glenn_Parker1)\ **Post date:** [18 February 2005 22:52 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/6 "2005-02-18T22:52:13Z")
Navindra Umanee wrote: > I have to admit I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people here > who use Ruby on the Windows platform... many of them Ruby experts like > yourself. > > I somehow have this image of open source languages like > Perl/Python/Ruby mostly thriving on the Unix platform. I mean sure, > there are Windows ports, but those are usually assumed to be > second-rate. > > I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Windows people have to hack > software too. I would imagine they would prefer more official > development environments with fancy polished GUIs and the such, but > hey why not Ruby. Percentage-wise, there probably aren't that many Ruby coders in the Windows universe, but the Windows universe is large and vast, so you're bound to get a few of us. Also, don't assume that only Windows developers use Windows. I'm a long-time UNIX developer, but I typically run Windows at home for all the usual banal reasons. Ruby on Windows is one less reason to dual-boot. > **···** > > -- > Glenn Parker | glenn.parker-AT-comcast.net | \<[http://www.tetrafoil.com/>](http://www.tetrafoil.com/>); ---
**Author:** ![James\_Britt6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@James\_Britt6](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Britt6)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 01:32 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/7 "2005-02-19T01:32:59Z")
Navindra Umanee wrote: > > FXIrb is a simple FXText wrapper around IRB, giving it useful features > > like a decent GUI font and cut/paste capability. The current version > > is being developed under Windows; I'll look at crossplatform operation > > in a later release > > I have to admit I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people here > who use Ruby on the Windows platform... many of them Ruby experts like > yourself. > > I somehow have this image of open source languages like > Perl/Python/Ruby mostly thriving on the Unix platform. I mean sure, > there are Windows ports, but those are usually assumed to be > second-rate. > > I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Windows people have to hack > software too. I would imagine they would prefer more official > development environments with fancy polished GUIs and the such, but > hey why not Ruby. I really liked Visual Studio back in my VB days, and like (to the small extent I've used it) the current .net visual studio. (SharpDevelop is quite slick, too). But over time I've become a big fan of the command line; I've built up a library of tools to speed up Google searchs, library queries, TV schedule searches, Wiki searching/editing, all from the command line. And Gvim is my editor of choice. By coincidence this has largely happened since I came across Ruby. Go figure. But I've also met a fair number of Windows hackers who also live in cmd world. I think a certain mindset encourages the migration. James > **···** > > > Martin DeMello \ wrote: ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_DeMello1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Martin\_DeMello1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Martin_DeMello1)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 09:49 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/8 "2005-02-19T09:49:45Z")
Clunky cut/paste is the main one, limited scrollback, occasional weirdnesses (e.g. my cmd.exe here at home has arrow key support inside irb, but the one at work, which us \*also\* win2k, just sends weird escape sequences). To be fair, I could be subconsciously expecting it to behave in the familiar xterm way and annoyed that it doesn't - I've never made very heavy use of it. martin > **···** > > James Britt \ wrote: > > > I confess I am not a frequent user of irb; I prefer to use vim and > > execute code straight through the editor. But I tend to do a great deal > > of mundane work on Win2k using the cmd shell. What features are missing > > that you want to put into fxirb? > > > > Or, put another way, what do find so painful about the cmd shell? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_DeMello1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Martin\_DeMello1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Martin_DeMello1)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 09:59 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/9 "2005-02-19T09:59:45Z")
The windows port of ruby is actually quite excellent, especially with the one-click installer (thanks to everyone involved with that!). I'm not too big a fan of the official development environment - we use it at work, and some parts of it are great (the ability to easily navigate a multithreaded stack trace, frinstance) while others are just not to my taste. What I've ended up doing is editing using cygwin and gvim, with ctags and glark for code navigation, and compiling and debugging inside the visual studio IDE. At home I dual boot, but I've been spending most of my time in Windows lately for one very compelling reason - the fonts. Seriously, it's easier to set up a unixish environment under windows than it is to get decent looking small fonts under linux. And as Jamis noted, you can get a lot accomplished from the command line these days, and ruby definitely helps with that. martin > **···** > > Navindra Umanee \ wrote: > > > I somehow have this image of open source languages like > > Perl/Python/Ruby mostly thriving on the Unix platform. I mean sure, > > there are Windows ports, but those are usually assumed to be > > second-rate. > > > > I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. Windows people have to hack > > software too. I would imagine they would prefer more official > > development environments with fancy polished GUIs and the such, but > > hey why not Ruby. ---
**Author:** ![Luc\_Heinrich1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Luc\_Heinrich1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Luc_Heinrich1)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 10:19 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/10 "2005-02-19T10:19:45Z")
I have to admit I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people who use Windows to begin with ☹ > **···** > > Navindra Umanee \ wrote: > > > I have to admit I'm absolutely astonished at the number of people here > > who use Ruby on the Windows platform... > > -- > Luc Heinrich - lucsky@mac.com ---
**Author:** ![Shashank\_Date2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@Shashank\_Date2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Shashank_Date2)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 13:54 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/11 "2005-02-19T13:54:44Z")
James Britt wrote: > Or, put another way, what do find so painful about the cmd shell? Does code completion work for you on Windows cmd shell? That is one fetaure I was never able to get to work. I am on Win XP SP2 using the latest one-click installer. -- shanko ---
**Author:** ![Csaba\_Henk4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Csaba\_Henk4](https://rubytalk.org/u/Csaba_Henk4)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 10:34 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/12 "2005-02-19T10:34:44Z")
That's an interesting POV! Eh, maybe you just bumped into the wrong distro. Eg., if you boot into Knoppix, that gives you quite a polished look with nice fonts and transparent menus... Csaba > **···** > > On 2005-02-19, Martin DeMello \ wrote: > > > At home I dual boot, but I've been spending most of my time in Windows > > lately for one very compelling reason - the fonts. Seriously, it's > > easier to set up a unixish environment under windows than it is to get > > decent looking small fonts under linux. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Ankerl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Martin\_Ankerl](https://rubytalk.org/u/Martin_Ankerl)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 12:54 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/13 "2005-02-19T12:54:44Z")
> At home I dual boot, but I've been spending most of my time in Windows > lately for one very compelling reason - the fonts. For me it is exactly the other way round. I use an LCD monitor, and I have to say the XFree's subpixel hinting is far superiour to Microsoft's implementation, on windows the fonts always look a bit washy. Oh, and I use the Bitstream fonts wherever possible, they are really good: [http://www.gnome.org/fonts/](http://www.gnome.org/fonts/) martinus ---
**Author:** ![James\_Britt6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@James\_Britt6](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Britt6)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 15:14 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/14 "2005-02-19T15:14:39Z")
Shashank Date wrote: > James Britt wrote: > > > Or, put another way, what do find so painful about the cmd shell? > > Does code completion work for you on Windows cmd shell? Code completion in the cmd shell? Or in irb in the cmd shell? How would I test this? James ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Kellett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@Stephen\_Kellett](https://rubytalk.org/u/Stephen_Kellett)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 22:24 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/15 "2005-02-19T22:24:44Z")
> I really liked Visual Studio back in my VB days, and like (to the small extent I've used it) the current .net visual studio. (SharpDevelop is quite slick, too). Blimey, I just don't understand that. Visual Studio 6.0 == very good. Visual Studio.net == awful, just about everything that was good in 6 was broken beyond repair and some of it is still not fixed in Visual Studio.net 2005 beta. I bet after VB, Ruby is quite a revelation. > And Gvim is my editor of choice. Thats a vi variant? Ouch. > By coincidence this has largely happened since I came across Ruby. > But I've also met a fair number of Windows hackers who also live in cmd world. I think a certain mindset encourages the migration. I'm the opposite way around. I was a die hard Unix guy until I saw Excel running inside of Word in 1993. Nothing like that could be done in the Unix world at that time. I didn't move to start using Microsoft stuff till '96. I still use Linux, but not much, although that will soon change. I have no time for Linux vs Microsoft OS wars or languages wars. As time has gone on I'm further away from cmd all the time, but there are some things I will only do from cmd - I think some things are just better there and what those things are, they are probably person-specific. Stephen > **···** > > In message \<42169773.60505@neurogami.com\>, James Britt \ writes > -- > Stephen Kellett > Object Media Limited [http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk](http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk) > RSI Information: [http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/rsi.html](http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/rsi.html) ---
**Author:** ![gabriele\_renzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@gabriele\_renzi](https://rubytalk.org/u/gabriele_renzi)\ **Post date:** [20 February 2005 09:59 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/16 "2005-02-20T09:59:43Z")
Shashank Date ha scritto: > James Britt wrote: > > > Or, put another way, what do find so painful about the cmd shell? > > Does code completion work for you on Windows cmd shell? That is one fetaure I was never able to get to work. I am on Win XP SP2 using the latest one-click installer. it seem to me that thorugh TweakUI I had both command completion and directpry completion working. But at some time (maybe some hot fix) the former stopped working for me. Go figure 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_DeMello1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Martin\_DeMello1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Martin_DeMello1)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 11:04 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/17 "2005-02-19T11:04:45Z")
I'm using RedHat FC3 at the moment, but I've been meaning to check out Debian. Will give it a try in the near future. martin > **···** > > Csaba Henk \ wrote: > > > On 2005-02-19, Martin DeMello \ wrote: > > \> At home I dual boot, but I've been spending most of my time in Windows > > \> lately for one very compelling reason - the fonts. Seriously, it's > > \> easier to set up a unixish environment under windows than it is to get > > \> decent looking small fonts under linux. > > > > That's an interesting POV! Eh, maybe you just bumped into the wrong > > distro. Eg., if you boot into Knoppix, that gives you quite a polished > > look with nice fonts and transparent menus... ---
**Author:** ![Tait](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Tait](https://rubytalk.org/u/Tait)\ **Post date:** [19 February 2005 15:49 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/18 "2005-02-19T15:49:44Z")
martinus wrote: > > At home I dual boot, but I've been spending most of my time in > > Windows > > > lately for one very compelling reason - the fonts. > > For me it is exactly the other way round. I use an LCD monitor, and I > have to say the XFree's subpixel hinting is far superiour to > Microsoft's implementation, on windows the fonts always look a bit > washy. Oh, and I use the Bitstream fonts wherever possible, they are > really good: [http://www.gnome.org/fonts/](http://www.gnome.org/fonts/) > > martinus Sometimes the reason the fonts look washy on Windows is that ClearType isn't set up right. When I had overly fuzzy fonts on my dell LCD at work, I did some digging around and found out it was due to subpixel order: default hinting for an R-G-B subpixel order is very wrong on a B-G-R panel. If you want to play with it, have a look at [Microsoft Typography documentation - Typography | Microsoft Learn](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx%5C). Tait p.s. First post. Hi all. ---
**Author:** ![Csaba\_Henk4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Csaba\_Henk4](https://rubytalk.org/u/Csaba_Henk4)\ **Post date:** [20 February 2005 01:34 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ann-fxirb-0-14-a-win32-gui-wrapper-around-irb/16603/19 "2005-02-20T01:34:45Z")
Although I tend to migrate to emacs from vim, I say vim is an excellent editor. It's just genious how its authors took the vi heritage and turned it to something what is full of features and one can achieve efficiency with it within a few hours. The best illustration for the power of vim is cream, see at [http://cream.sf.net](http://cream.sf.net). It's a macro package for vim which turns vim to a totally end-user-friendly, non-modal editor. When using it, you don't need to know anything about vi. Why would the end user want to use cream instead of the hundred other end-user-friendly editors? Because of one killer feature of vim: the swapfile. It's a(n almost) real-time saved copy of the actual state of the edited file's buffer (though "saved copy" is not the most exact term, as its some kind of binary format), from which you can easily restore your changes in case of a system/editor crash, and which silently disappears upon clean exit (no dozens of backup files polluting your directories, like with emacs). You could give a try to cream (there is a one-click installer for Windows), then re-evaluate the "vi variant? ouch" statement. Csaba > **···** > > On 2005-02-19, Stephen Kellett \ wrote: > > > In message \<42169773.60505@neurogami.com\>, James Britt \>\ writes > > > > > And Gvim is my editor of choice. > > > > Thats a vi variant? Ouch.