Bowline - Ruby Desktop Applications

Presented by: Alex MacCaw

If you’ve ever wished creating desktop application was as easy as creating a Rails site, then this session is for you. Developed in a real business environment, Bowline is a Ruby desktop framework that is aiming to be the Rails of the desktop world.

Bowline’s author will take you through creating beautiful interfaces in HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript; then binding those interfaces to the Ruby backend - producing a fully featured cross-platform desktop application.

Bowline uses WebKit for it’s interface, so all the new CSS3 and HTML5 developments are available to you. The session will show you how to use all these new tools in Bowline apps, from CSS animations to completely new layout techniques.

The session will then conclude by showing you how to synchronize Bowline apps with your remote servers Ð building fully realtime desktop applications.

Alex is a Ruby developer and entrepreneur from London. His first open source project, Juggernaut, was released 3 years ago. Since then, Alex has been working on numerous other projects - the latest of which, Bowline was developed for his company’s latest product, Taskforce. He writes for a widely followed blog, and has contributed to many others - including the Rails Magazine. He’s also spoken at quite a few events, such as Rails Conf Europe last year.