Revision as of 05:28, 15 August 2009

Developing Ruby QT Applications using QT Designer and Ruby on Ubuntu

These instructions are tested with Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 .

Install the appropriate packages

From a command line terminal run

The default form is a Dialog with Buttons Right. Stick with that and click Create
Drag a List View from the Item Widgets (Item-Based) selection of widgets on the left onto the form. Be careful NOT to choose the List View from the Item Widgets (Model-Based)
Right-click the List View that is now dragged on the form

Creating the basic application structure

Now that we've got a user interface, we need to run a command (rbuic4) that creates a Ruby class that we can use based on the interface
From the command line terminal

Navigate to the my_first_project folder you created earlier using the cd command
Run the command 'rbuic4 dashboard.ui -x -o dashboard_ui.rb'
The '-o dashboard_ui.rb' bit of the command says dump the resulting ruby code into a file called dashboard_ui.rb
The '-x' bit of the command says to create a little stub (like a main function in C/C++ or public static void main in Java) that kicks off the application. Otherwise your application would have no entry point
For instant gratification run the command 'ruby dashboard_ui.rb'
Woaa!!! You should see your beautiful form before you very eyes

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 #Click the green plus icon on the left to add an item
 #Enter the text: Second line
+#Click OK to finish editing items
 *Save what we've done by selecting Save As in the File Menu
+#Navigate to the folder you created earlier, my_first_project<br>
 #Choose the filename dashboard.ui for your file and click save
 #This file contains and XML representation of the form you just created<br>
 *If you want to take a quick look at your form select Preview from the Form menu<br>
 *But we're done with GUI stuff now! Let's get hacking...
+<br>
+Creating the basic application structure<br>
+*Now that we've got a user interface, we need to run a command (rbuic4) that creates a Ruby class that we can use based on the interface<br>
+*From the command line terminal<br>
+#Navigate to the my_first_project folder you created earlier using the cd command<br>
+#Run the command 'rbuic4 dashboard.ui -x -o dashboard_ui.rb'
+#The '-o dashboard_ui.rb' bit of the command says dump the resulting ruby code into a file called dashboard_ui.rb
+#The '-x' bit of the command says to create a little stub (like a main function in C/C++ or public static void main in Java) that kicks off the application. Otherwise your application would have no entry point<br>
+#For instant gratification run the command 'ruby dashboard_ui.rb'
+#Woaa!!! You should see your beautiful form before you very eyes
 <br>