Support for
IronRuby 0.9.1 is now available for
SharpDevelop 3.1. The IronRuby addin is an early alpha preview
release/proof of concept and is not an official part of
SharpDevelop 3.1 so it is available as a separate download at the
end of this post.
Features
- Code folding
- Syntax highlighting
- File and project templates for Console and Windows Forms
applications
- IronRuby Console window
- Windows Forms designer (limited)
- C# and VB.NET code conversion to Ruby (limited)
Please note that the forms designer and code conversion need a
lot more work.
Creating a Windows Application
Open up the new project dialog by selecting New then
Solution from the File menu. Selecting the Ruby
category will show two project templates. One will create a Windows
console application and the other will create a Windows Forms
application.
To run your application ensure the Program.rb file is in the
active text editor window then select Run from the
Ruby menu. This will run your code with the IronRuby console
(ir.exe). Alternatively you can run the application by selecting
Run from the Debug menu but you will first need to
configure the project options. Select Project Options from
the Project menu to open up the Debug project options.
You will need to add ${ProjectDir} to the command line
arguments and working directory as shown above. The -19
command line argument is used to enable Ruby 1.9 support otherwise
the IronRuby console will not be able to load any UTF-8 source code
files.
Currently you cannot debug your code even if the -D command line
argument is specified.
If you are running a windows app and nothing seems to happen
then open a command line window and run it from there. This way you
should see any errors reported from the IronRuby console.
Designing Windows Forms
The Windows Forms designer is still in its early stages so
please be warned that it may break the form's code or worse.
The designer code generation is a lot more complete than the
designer loader so the designer will most likely fail to load all
controls into the designer.
The designer can be opened in the usual way by opening the form
in the text editor and selecting the Design tab at the bottom of
the text editor. Once open in the designer you can add controls to
the form in the usual way from the Tools window. In the screenshot
below a label, text box and a button have been added.
Click the Source tab to view the generated code in the
InitializeComponents method. Make sure you do this before trying to
save the code.
IronRuby Console
To open the IronRuby Console window select Tools, Ruby
Console from the View menu.
When you type Ruby code into the IronRuby Console you will get
code completion when you press the '.' character.
Code Folding
Code folding allows you to collapse regions of a class.
Code Conversion
To convert VB.NET or C# to Ruby open the file you want to
convert and then select Convert code to Ruby from the
Tools menu.
The code conversion is limited to classes so it will not convert
an arbitary piece of code that is not inside a class. A C# class
being converted to Ruby is shown below.
The code conversion is still at an early stage of development so
it will fail on complicated classes.
Class View
Classes in the open solution will be displayed in the Class
browser (Select Classes from the View menu).
From there you can double click a class or method and the text
editor will display the corresponding code.
Installing the IronRuby AddIn
- Rename the
IronRubyAddIn-0.1.zip file to
IronRubyAddIn-0.1.sdaddin.
-
From the
Tools
menu select
AddIn Manager
.
-
Click the
Install AddIn
button.
-
In the Open File Dialog browse to the
IronRubyAddIn-0.1.sdaddin
file and click the
Open
button.
- Click the Close button.
- Restart SharpDevelop.
Ruby Links
Some of the Ruby tutorials and links used whilst creating the
IronRuby addin.
- Ruby
documentation.
- Book
of Ruby by Huw Collingbourne.
- IronRuby
homepage.
Downloads
IronRubyAddIn0.1.zip
IronRubyAddIn0.1-src.zip