I'm working on a proof-of-concept Ruby desktop app bundler/launcher for OS X. It's not yet ready for release, or even hacking on, but I wanted to describe the package and see if there was any interest because it's not a simple plug-and-play "wrap my app, run on OS X" tool.
The project is based on an older version of Platypus (http://sveinbjorn.org/platypus/), and has the following design features:
1. Stub executable that launches the Ruby GUI app (currently testing a "hello world" Ruby-Tk app).
2. Offers support for many Mac OS X features, including the Services API, AppleScript/AppleEvents, etc.
3. Under the hood, the app runs the Ruby app as a separate process and communicates with the Ruby app via the Distributed Ruby module.
4. The app allows you to define and dynamically install Apple Events via ini files bundled with the Mac app bundle. The app will also require you to define standard menu items in this fashion, and communicate with the Ruby app via message passing through Distributed Ruby. (The separate Ruby app will launch without a Dock icon or menu, to provide the illusion that it's a single app process.)
This project is a classic case of "scratching my own itch," and it may prove unworkable as a general-purpose solution; it will require far more configuration than deploying a Ruby GUI app on Windows would. I'm also not clear on how to generalize to other UI frameworks outside of Tk. If there's no interest I'll simply dump the source code at Github per the GPL, but if there is more interest, I may put together a full-scale project with documentation.
I'm deeply frustrated with the Windows-centric orientation of the Ruby desktop app wrapper libraries and the lack of up-to-date support among these tools for Ruby 1.9. My own solution, owing to my lack of substantial knowledge of Ruby's internals, is based on a good working knowledge of OS X internal mechanisms, and the discovery of Ruby's Distributed Ruby module that allows you to send messages to a currently-running Ruby process: this feature of Ruby blows me away and overrides my frustration with the lack of useful app deployment tools on OS X for non-MacRuby Ruby apps, and has inspired the Rube-Goldbergesque-but-so-far-working design of my current approach.
Haven't yet arrived at a name for this package, but will give that some more thought.
Thoughts are appreciated. If there's no interest, this will likely be my last word on this project.
--Kevin
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Kevin Walzer
Code by Kevin
http://www.codebykevin.com