AndyObtiva

I recorded a drum solo to demo Glimmer Metronome, a Ruby-based metronome GUI app that supports different beat counts, click sounds, and tempos, including tap-based tempo calculation. It was built with Glimmer DSL for SWT using JRuby to help me with my drumming practice. Glimmer Metronome just received a new update in version 1.1.4 that adds menus and keyboard shortcuts, thus becoming more user-friendly when using the keyboard alone.

Traditionally, Glimmer GUI gems have been mostly a one-sided effort. Well, that changes with Glimte! Glimte is a 3rd party framework built on top of Glimmer (Tk flavor) by Phaengris to facilitate following a certain flavor of the MVC pattern (Model-View-Controller) called MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel). It encourages a model of programming for desktop GUI views that is similar to Rails .erb

Glimmer DSL for LibUI 0.6.1 has been released with support for table lazy loading via `Enumerator` (or `Enumerator::Lazy`). As a result, the table control can now handle millions of rows and renders instantly without waiting for all data to be loaded given that it is loaded lazily as the user scrolls through the table. That enables applications with a lot of data to start instantly. A new example, Lazy Table, has been included to demonstrate table lazy loading.

Recently, I received a support request concerning Glimmer DSL for SWT (JRuby Desktop Development GUI Framework) and the use of Nebula Custom Widgets, specifically the text_assist widget (auto-complete text field). For a quick background about Nebula, it is a collection of 55+ enterprise-grade high-quality SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) custom widgets, including a progress circle, a password revealer, and an oscilloscope. Thanks to Glimmer DSL for SWT, they are usable from Ruby.

Glimmer DSL for SWT (JRuby Desktop Development GUI Framework) has just had a major release for the quarterly update of the SWT library, which is now up to version 4.26. Glimmer DSL for SWT now matches it with version 4.26.0.0.

abstract_feature_branch is one of the simplest and most minimalistic "Feature Flags" ruby gems out there. It enables you to get started very quickly by simply leveraging YAML files without having to set up a data store if you do not need it (albeit, you also have the option to use Redis as a very fast in-memory data store).

This is a courtesy reminder of the Glimmer Competition deadline (3 weeks away). Build a code editor native desktop app in Glimmer DSL for LibUI by Jan 15, 2023. It’s a fun educational task to do during the Christmas/New-Year break!

RubyConf 2022 talk slides for “Building Native GUI Apps in Ruby” have been posted, including a mention of a new Glimmer DSL for LibUI release [0.6.0.pre.0] that finally leverages a newer version of the C libui library, supporting a new open_folder dialog.

PerfectShape is a collection of pure Ruby geometric algorithms that are mostly useful for GUI manipulation like checking viewport rectangle intersection or containment of a mouse click point in popular geometry shapes such as rectangle, square, arc, ellipse, circle, polygon, and paths containing lines, quadratic bézier curves, and cubic bezier curves, potentially with affine transforms applied like translation, scale, rotation, shear/skew, and inversion.

Learn how to scaffold and package Ruby desktop applications from scratch, including how to desktopify any web application with one command.

This is the most up-to-date and complete Glimmer DSL for SWT presentation for building and packaging native desktop applications in Ruby! Check out the talk's video and slides that were just posted!

“Great opportunity next week in Montreal to see why JRuby is such a powerful tool for building scalable, cross-platform desktop applications... entirely in Ruby!” - JRuby Dev Team

https://twitter.com/jruby/status/1575175948789497857?s=21&t=F_B7k1FPfv3NDlDYMU-y0g

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 34 is out! It walks software engineers through the Hello, Refined Table! sample.

This blog post is an oldie but a goodie: "Decoupling Views from Controllers in #Rails (Smalltalk MVC Style)". Its concepts come straight out of desktop development, providing examples of how web development could be inspired by it and improved as a result.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 33 is out! It walks software engineers through the Tetris sample.

My talk proposal for RubyConf 2022 (Houston, TX, USA / Nov 29 - Dec 1) titled "Building Native GUI Apps in Ruby" has been accepted!

My talk proposal for Rails Remote Conf 2022 (Sep 26 - Sep 30) titled "Ultra Light Wizard" has been accepted! Ultra Light Wizard is an approach for building multi-step forms in Rails.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 32 is out! It walks software engineers through the Klondike Solitaire sample.

A recent blog post mentioned that in Glimmer DSL for SWT, you can data-bind a table bidirectionally in a single line of declarative code. Well, in the latest release, that line is shorter now, thanks to Convention Over Configuration!! Also, a new Custom Widget called `refined_table` has been released to support displaying very large amounts of data in a `table` via automatic pagination.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 31 is out! It walks software engineers through the Battleship sample.

Glimmer was the first software library to enable data-binding a full table with a single line of code! Well, now it does even more as it also data-binds table cell background color, foreground color, font, and image with that same single line of code!

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 30 is out! It walks software engineers through the Hello, Custom Shape! sample.

Another GitHub Pull Request for Rubio-Radio (open-source Internet radio app built with Ruby) got accepted and merged, which focused on displaying the currently playing song/program, loading all available radio stations (instead of a pre-defined limit), and documenting full-text-search support including column-specific queries.

In Glimmer DSL for SWT v4.24.2.2, the `code_text` custom widget, which supports syntax highlighting for 204 languages, has been upgraded with support for Dark Mode.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 29 is out! It walks software engineers through the Hello, Custom Shell! sample.

Recently, I blogged about how I contributed Pagination/Filtering support to Rubio-Radio, an Internet radio application built with Ruby and Glimmer DSL for LibUI. Again, a Rubio-Radio GitHub Pull Request that I submitted for Bookmarking & Async Gradual Fetching features has been accepted and merged into the project by its owner.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 28 is out! It walks software engineers through the Hello, Custom Widget! sample.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 27 is out! It walks software engineers through the Parking sample.

Glimmer DSL for LibUI v0.5.16 ships with a brand new alpha custom control called `refined_table`, which supports pagination and filtering, thus able to handle tens of thousands of rows with no problem. A new example, Paginated Refined Table, demonstrates the new custom control. `refined_table` was used in the Rubio Radio application to enable browsing 10,000 top radio stations with excellent performance and usability.

Desktop development is about 10 times simpler than web development. Learn it and you will become a better web developer as you transfer the simplicity of desktop development to the web!

Glimmer DSL for SWT Video Tutorial 26 is out! It walks software engineers through the Hello, Canvas Transform! sample.