Quick Start

Running Visual Ruby

First Download visualruby. Once you've installed it, run it by typing the command:

vr

Try the Example Projects

Once started, visualruby will open one of the example projects. Click the *Run“ button to try it.

You can open and run each example project using the Open Project, and Run buttons:

Try browsing the code using the file tree on the left, and edit the glade files by right-clicking on one of the ruby (.rb) files.

Each example is designed to teach a lesson in visualruby, and every project will show you great time saving tricks. Run each example, and study the code. It will onlt take a short time. There are many examples you can learn from:

Visual Ruby will Create Home Folder

When installed, visualruby will create a folder:

/home/yourname/visualruby

This is where you should keep all your visualruby projects.

When you create a project in the /visualruby folder, it will then appear when you click the Open Project button on the toolbar.

Try Editing the Glade Files

Try right-clicking on a .rb file, and edit its glade file. You'll see that the glade file's name maps the glade file name to the class of the calling file:

MyClass.rb => MyClass.glade

Learn Gtk

Visualruby is written entirely in Gtk, so every part of visualruby is a subclass of a Gtk object. Therefore, you have the entire Gtk library of classes that can be used in visualruby. Also, all the properties and methods of the Gtk parent classes can be used on the visualruby classes.

For example, the class VR::ListView is a subclass of Gtk::TreeView. So you can use all of Gtk::TreeView's methods and instance variables.

Everyhitng about ruby/gtk is at this website:

Ruby-GNOME2

Getting Help

There are several resources to get help, and I will be happy to answer your questions. However, I want to answer questions publicly so others can benefit as well. Please post to one of there forums:

Ruby Gnome Forum

Stack Overflow

Visual Ruby’s Git Hub Page