Errata for Rapid GUI Development with QtRuby

#24245: This is a great way to make my suggestions. But first I would like to point out that I really enjoyed going through this book. I'm so glad I was able to get an early download of it. I look forward to future versions of it and hope my suggestions can be of some use.

My suggestions are:
* Adding System wide event handler example
* More details and examples of the Strech, Spacing and SizePolicies.
* I think that information on using QT::Table is an essential part of this book. I think this information would be a great (next :-)) addition to the book.
* I've never used the IconView or Workspace and think more information (examples) would be wonderful additions to the book :-)
* In the section on the kde class libraries, it would be great if you could have a list of them (or the most common ones) or a link to find this information right there for the interested reader. And of course more example application code is always appreciated :-)
* In the section on Korundum, it seems like page 82 would be a great place for a link for more information, rather than waiting until the appendix.
* The closing chapter could have a closing section. Great summary of information, but didn't really feel like it gave the closure I was looking for (rb pun intended :-)).
* The Web References could have the URL as plain text in addition to being a link, so the interested reader can quickly glance at the sites.

Once again I would like to thank you for your hard work on this book. It has inspired me to want to write books and articles -- and I've been looking for that inspiration for a long time.

--Geoff Ruscoe

#25781: Greetings, I have a suggestion (I'm not a vip to request anything :)
), I recently bought yet another pragamtic book, the Rapid GUI
development with QtRuby friday guide, and I enjoy it enormously.

The suggestion is, that with the working-beta status of the Qt4-Ruby
extensions, and the many advantages of Qt4 over Qt3, it'd be nice to
produce a new edition of the book, with changes centered on the new
way of doing things in Qt4 and maybe an extra chapter with QtRuby ->
Qt4Ruby migration guidelines in it.

Personally I do not need the book right away, though I'd get it
eventually for the collection, but it'd be a good book for many people
and new buyers.

Thanks.
Lars Goldschlager.--Lars Goldschlager

#29916: While the technical material covered seems accurate, and is helpful, I was sorely disappointed by the lack of practical examples. The code snippets did illustrate the points being made, but most of it was just snippets, rather than a self-contained script that could be run by itself.
More importantly, the building blocks were presented, with almost no information on how you build with them. It would have been great to see even a relatively simple app, like a regexp evaluator (something the local Perl group showed off in a meeting one day, not terribly complicated). Maybe a clock with reminders, something.
As it is, I think the best thing in terms of examples is the link at the end to Trolltech's QtRuby tutorials.--Paul Archer

#25598: This is not really a bug, but rather positive feedback:
The tip to look for the "kdebindings" package for installation alone is worth the 8.50 bucks for this "Friday". Thanks muchly!

Suppose the idea of using the famous Qt GUI library with the Ruby scripting language crossed your mind. Alas, this happened to me yesterday.
Now, try googling for "ruby qt" (from Berlin, Germany) and check the results -- quite poor; OK, the first hit directs you to a KDevelop page with huge amounts of text, but nothing really effective.
Then try the swapped "qt ruby" -- a bit better; the second hit mentions "Ruby bindings" and the page refers to "QtRuby".
Third attempt, "qtruby" /without/ the space -- bingo!

Now imagine that you've never heard of this stuff and that you're on OpenSUSE. Go over to YaST's software selection and look for "qtruby" -- zilch. The same result on rpmseek.
OK, over to the QtRuby project page, download the .tar.gz source drop, run "make -f Makefile.cvs; ./configure; make; sudo make install" and you're done. When you're finished playing around, even "sudo make uninstall" works smoothly and only leaves an empty /usr/local/include subdirectory behind. Unfortunately, I'm no longer happy with this "configure/make" mechanism and really prefer the system package management system.
Seeing that QtRuby's "Hello World!" example works immediately, I check out Caleb Tennis' small booklet from this site and plunge into the text. Moments later: Hurray on page 14!

Had I acquired "Rapid GUI development with QtRuby" _before_ doing the ridiculously long list of intermediate steps above, and learned about the "kdebindings" package (in the case of OpenSUSE you want to install "kdebindings3-ruby"), it would have saved me a good amount of time.

To conclude: Someone /should/ try to give "ruby qt" a better Google ranking for "QtRuby" (or vice versa). And maybe the "kdebindings3-ruby" package for OpenSUSE /should/ react to the keyword "qtruby".

Thanks again to Caleb Tennis for this nice booklet, which got be started so well (after a two-hour false start).--Andreas Scherer

#26244: Would love to see A LOT more info on using with designer. In particular how to add a custom Widget that was created with QtRuby and be able to add that to the designer as a custom widget.--Robert J. Berger