Hello David,

DB> - Tk is a mature, script-driven set of UI components that has bindings
DB> for most popular scripting languages.  It runs on Windows, Mac and
DB> Linux.  Tk defines its own set of UI widgets, so the controls look
DB> exactly the same on all three platforms.  But let's be honest: Tk looks
DB> like crap.  Next to a well-polished UI, Tk looks pretty klunky.

Yes, but there is a new widget set that uses the plattform theming
engine on each machine, named "Tile" . Don't know if this is already
useable and integrated in ruby.

DB> - Gtk is a linux-native Gui toolkit that produces beautiful UIs for
DB> Linux.  I believe Windows and Mac ports exist, but I am not sure.  The

No there is no working native MacOXS port, you need a X11 server.

DB> I will also note that, like most of the Ruby community, they have come a
DB> LONG way in the past year.  There's a wiki with pretty robust-looking
DB> documentation and some decent tutorials at:

DB> http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl

I think the problem is that the old version 0.6 is not developed
further and the new version that uses SWIG for the bindings has only
one person working on it and the development seem to have stopped.

DB> There are other GUI toolkits available, but I haven't explored them.
DB> Something called "FOX" exists.  There's a Qt toolkit that appears to
DB> have gotten to a usable alpha state in 2002 and then been abandoned.
DB> There may be others.

Don't know about QT but i know a lot about FOX. The worst problem with
fox is missing I18N and L17N. Documentation is good, maybe the best of
all documentation available. I hope that the developers of other
toolkits take a look at it and provide something like this also for there
toolkits. FOX is very fast but indeed ugly if you don't add a layer on
top of it.



-- 
 Best regards,                        emailto: scholz at scriptolutions dot com
 Lothar Scholz                        http://www.ruby-ide.com
 CTO Scriptolutions                   Ruby, PHP, Python IDE 's