use browser as GUI in Ruby

Question

In vbscript it is common to use the browser (IE) as a GUI. See the example below, it asks for a name and returns it to the script. In Ruby you have a few GUI\'s like Tcl and

Answer 1

win32ole is already mentioned.

Here an example script:

require 'win32ole' 
def inputbox( message, title="Message from #{__FILE__}" )
  # returns nil if 'cancel' is clicked
  # returns a (possibly empty) string otherwise
  # hammer the arguments to vb-script style
  vb_msg = %Q| "#{message.gsub("\n",'"& vbcrlf &"')}"|
  vb_msg.gsub!( "\t", '"& vbtab &"' )
  vb_msg.gsub!( '&""&','&' )
  vb_title = %Q|"#{title}"|
  # go!
  sc = WIN32OLE.new( "ScriptControl" )
  sc.language = "VBScript"
  sc.eval(%Q|Inputbox(#{vb_msg}, #{vb_title})|)
  #~ sc.eval(%Q|Inputbox(#{vb_msg}, #{vb_title}, aa,hide)|)
end

#simple use
res = inputbox "Your input please." 
p res

To give a message box you may use:

require 'win32ole'
def popup(message)
  wsh = WIN32OLE.new('WScript.Shell')
  wsh.popup(message, 0, __FILE__)
end

In http://rubyonwindows.blogspot.com/2007/04/ruby-excel-inputbox-hack.html (source of this examples) you find also a solution with Excel.