On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:44:33 +0100, <tsumeruby / tsumelabs.com> wrote:

>
> Hey, you want to use GTK if you are targetting windows or linux. The GTK
> bindings support unicode, and the GTK API is frozen. There are several
> downsides to FOX, but it is included with one click. GTK really should  
> be too
> as its been around longer and trusted. Reasons have been explained  
> before on
> ruby-talk. Should grep the google groups for the reasons. theres also  
> qtruby,
> which bound to a rock solid library, but I'm not sure how many more  
> changes
> rdale wants.. so until its frozen.. :) GTK is most likely the most  
> stable if
> you're wanting pretty. Also, you said you used Tk, check out the Tk::Tile
> library, which you'll have to download apart from ruby or tk.
>
> Tsume
>


I blame Gtk being mentally associated with a lack of an official binary  
distribution for Windows - although I'm going out on a limb here, I don't  
really follow happenings around Gtk. Also, anything with a version number  
lower than 1.0 tends to be difficult to get past Managers That Think They  
Know Tech But Really Don't. And on ocassion, I've had some Windows  
programs that bundle a binary Gtk build along not work (notably MudMagic,  
haven't really investigated the problem much).

A frozen API isn't everything, ease of deployment is _very_ valuable in  
making end-user applications, and fxruby does deliver perfectly in that  
respect.

David Vallner