Autoloaded VS glimmer-dsl-tk

If you like the Module#autoload feature of the Ruby Core library, you may have wished for Autoloaded. It eliminates the drudgery of handcrafting an autoload statement for each Ruby source code file in your project. It also avoids the limitations of rigid convention-driven facilities such as those provided by the ActiveSupport RubyGem. Autoloaded assumes, but does not enforce, PascalCase-to-snake_case correspondence between the names of constants and source files. You can combine conventions, even putting multiple autoloaded constants in a single source file.

# From: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-tk#hello-progressbar require 'glimmer-dsl-tk' class HelloProgressbar include Glimmer attr_accessor :progress_value, :maximum_value, :delay_value def initialize self.progress_value = 0 self.maximum_value = 100 self.delay_value = 0.01 Thread.new do loop do self.progress_value = (self.progress_value.to_i + 1) % (maximum_value.to_i + 1) sleep(delay_value) # yields to main thread end end end def launch root { text 'Hello, Progressbar!' progressbar { grid row: 0, column: 0, columnspan: 3 orient 'horizontal' length 200 mode 'indeterminate' maximum <= [self, :maximum_value] value <= [self, :progress_value] } label { grid row: 1, column: 0 text 'Value' } label { grid row: 1, column: 1 text 'Maximum' } label { grid row: 1, column: 2 text 'Delay in Seconds' } spinbox { grid row: 2, column: 0 from 0.0 to 100.0 increment 1.0 format '%0f' text <=> [self, :progress_value, on_read: :to_i, on_write: :to_i] } spinbox { grid row: 2, column: 1 from 1.0 to 100.0 increment 1.0 format '%0f' text <=> [self, :maximum_value, on_read: :to_i, on_write: :to_i] } spinbox { grid row: 2, column: 2 from 0.01 to 1.0 increment 0.1 format '%0.2f' text <=> [self, :delay_value, on_write: ->(val) {[val.to_f, 1.0].min}] } progressbar { grid row: 3, column: 0, columnspan: 3 orient 'horizontal' length 200 mode 'determinate' maximum <= [self, :maximum_value] value <= [self, :progress_value] } progressbar { grid row: 4, column: 0, columnspan: 3 orient 'vertical' length 200 mode 'determinate' maximum <= [self, :maximum_value] value <= [self, :progress_value] } }.open end end HelloProgressbar.new.launch

Thankfully, community members contribute back to Glimmer too, such as vin1antme's big 2021 contribution of lightweight declarative drag and drop support for Glimmer DSL for Tk.

glimmer-dsl-tk: Glimmer DSL for Tk (MRI Ruby Desktop Development GUI Library)

Cryptopunks GUI is a Graphical User Interface for the famous cryptopunks Ruby gem, built with Glimmer DSL for Tk.

The main trade-off in using Glimmer DSL for LibUI as opposed to Glimmer DSL for SWT or Glimmer DSL for Tk is the fact that SWT and Tk are more mature than mid-alpha libui as GUI toolkits. Still, if there is only a need to build a small simple application, Glimmer DSL for LibUI could be a good convenient choice due to having zero prerequisites beyond the dependencies included in the Ruby gem. Also, just like Glimmer DSL for Tk, its apps start instantly and have a small memory footprint. LibUI is a promising new GUI toolkit that might prove quite worthy in the future.