Developers' Blog

Using the Ruby Librarian - a step-by-step guide

Ruby In Steel’s new extended IntelliSense tool

Wednesday 7 May 2008 by Dermot Hogan

The Ruby Librarian (our new ’extended’ IntelliSense tool - see previous blog post for more information) is a project that’s been hovering in the background for some time now. However, it’s taken some effort to get it to the stage where we think it’s ready to use. Part of the problem has been the peculiar nature of Ruby IntelliSense (particularly as applied to Rails) and some of the problem has been how to integrate it into Visual Studio. Here’s a tutorial on how to use it.

Note: The Ruby Librarian forms part of Ruby In Steel 1.3 which is currently in beta and will be released in a few weeks. Registered users will have access to the first beta in a day or two and this will be announced in the forum. In Ruby In Steel 1.3, when you click on the Ruby menu you'll (...)

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The Rails Drag and Drop Designer

New tutorial movie

Saturday 3 May 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

I’ve just put online another short (5 minute) movie that shows a simple step-by-step example of how to design HTML pages for your Rails applications just by dragging and dropping controls from the Toolbox into a web page.

There are examples of two controls in this movie: 1) an image. I show how you can use a trick of the Visual Rails Workbench to ensure that your image paths are correct both at design-time and runtime. 2) a model-aware text field. I show how you can drag a control into a page and ‘wire (...)

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The Ruby Librarian

IntelliSense Extended

Friday 2 May 2008 by Dermot Hogan

One of the annoying things about analysing source code for IntelliSense is that (currently) Ruby In Steel re-analyses code that clearly hasn’t been changed.

Consider this code: require "complex.rb" c = Complex.new(1, 1) puts c.arg In the current version of Ruby In Steel, the ‘require' is examined first and the code file specified is loaded and parsed. Then the following code statements are parsed. This sequence is repeated over (...)

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Ruby On Rails With Flex

How to Create a Flex Front End To a Rails Application

Wednesday 30 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

If you are bored with HTML front ends to your Rails applications, you may want to trying giving them a Flex makeover. Flex is the name of Adobe’s web framework and one of its specialities is that it can use Flash graphics to create a good-looking, browser-based interactive interfaces.

The good news for Rails developers is that Flex and Rails work well together - with a little bit of effort, anyhow. The real secret is to get Rails to format data as XML. It can then send that XML to Flex which can parse it into chunks (corresponding to the original ‘data fields') and (...)

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Ruby In Steel 1.2 - Important Update

Download Details

Monday 28 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

Due to an oversight in the first release of Ruby In Steel Developer 1.2, the Cylon Debugger’s logging was enabled in the release software. The debugger logging is a diagnostic tool and should have been disabled prior to the release. This affects a single very small (28K) file. We have now released a new version of this file, SteelCylon.dll, with logging disabled.

Download SteelCylon.dll if you have downloaded Ruby In Steel Developer 1.2.0435 (this version number is shown by selecting the Ruby menu then About) , we strongly advise you to download the new version of SteelCylon.dll and replace the version of this file that was supplied with the initial (...)

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Ruby In Steel 1.2 Launched

Includes The Visual Rails Workbench and Enhanced Debugging

Monday 21 April 2008 by SapphireSteel Software

SapphireSteel Software today launched version 1.2 of Ruby In Steel Developer - a major upgrade to its professional Ruby and Rails development environment for Visual Studio.

The Visual Rails Workbench makes it easy to switch between Ruby coding, ERb templates and fully-formed HTML pages in an integrated visual design workspace Ruby In Steel 1.2 features The Visual Rails Workbench - a fully integrated visual design and coding environment for Ruby On Rails (...)

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Visual Rails Workbench Launches On Monday

Ruby In Steel 1.2

Friday 18 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

It’s been over a year in development but now we are all ready to launch! By far the biggest update we’ve ever made to Ruby In Steel Developer, version 1.2 will be released on Monday 21st of April 2008.

As regular readers of this blog will know, the really big new feature in RiS 1.2 is The Visual Rails Workbench - a powerful drag-and-drop design-and-code environment for Ruby On Rails applications. In fact, there are numerous other new features too such as the much enhanced Cylon Ruby (and (...)

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RiS 1.2 / Visual Rails Workbench Manual Now Available

Documents all the new features

Wednesday 16 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

The new Ruby In Steel manual has just been put online. This documents all the new features of Ruby In Steel Developer 1.2 - including the Visual Rails Workbench (our new drag and drop design environment) and the substantially enhanced ultra-fast Cylon debugger. You may download the new manual from the Download Page.

Use the Bookmarks to navigate the 125 page manual We place a great deal of importance on documentation. The fully illustrated manual is now 125 pages in length. We also supply documents on a variety of other tools and technologies such as our Ruby Snippet editor, macro library and the Ruby (...)

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Ruby In Steel/Visual Rails Workbench Feature List

Preview of New Features

Tuesday 15 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

SapphireSteel Software will shortly release the version 1.2 of Ruby In Steel Developer featuring a unique drag and drop web design environment, The Visual Rails Workbench.

We have today updated the Features List so that you may now preview the full range of additions in this new version. In addition to the Visual Rails Workbench itself, there are major new features in debugging, including Tracepoints (the ability to evaluate variables and print messages when (...)

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Visual Rails Workbench - a peek behind the scenes

Assembly and Disassembly

Wednesday 9 April 2008 by Huw Collingbourne

It’s been a long time in development but our drag and drop design-and-code environment, The Visual Rails Workbench, is now pretty much ready to go. You can already download the 3rd (and probably final) beta and test it out for 30 days or, if you already have a licence, you can use your current registration details to unlock it - though, in fact, we expect to release the final shipping version (part of Ruby In Steel Developer 1.2) before those 30 days are out!

One of the things I am doing at the moment is going through the user guide and manual, updating any out of data documentation and adding sections covering all the (rather numerous) new features which will appear in Ruby In Steel 1.2. These include reference guides and tutorials not only to the (...)

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