PACKAGING THE REPORTER DESKTOP APPLICATION
Simply creating a desktop application is not enough??”users need to have the application running on
their machine. If your application will be run by only a few users, or if your code will run only server
side, this may not be an issue. However, if you need to install Ruby and associated libraries on users??™
machines for a wider distribution of your application, that can be a challenge.
Fortunately, a gem called RubyScript2Exe can help. This gem creates executable programs, and
you can target Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. (You??™ll need to be running the appropriate operating system
to create an executable for it, however.) In fact, RubyScript2Exe can even copy Ruby library
dependencies for you. It will run your program once as a ???test run,??? and from there, determine which
gems and other source code you??™ve used. It will then copy the source into your finished executable,
which will be transparently available to your finished program. Additionally, you can package binary or
configuration files with your script, so that the entire program is one convenient package.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123