WebKit is an open source web browser engine. gtk-webkit-ruby is a Ruby Gem that provides Gtk Webkit bindings for ruby, making it possible to embed a webview (class that has the ability to render a webpage) in a Ruby-GNOME2 application.
In this article we'll see how to install it in any Ubuntu distribution.
Install
Open a terminal window and run:
sudo apt-get install ruby-gnome2-dev -y && sudo apt-get install libwebkitgtk-dev -y && sudo gem install gtk-webkit-ruby -y
Usage
Bellow are the main instructions that should be added to a program in order to render a webpage within a Ruby-GNOME2 application. Please note that this is not a runnable example.
require "gtk2"
require "webkit"
webview = WebKit::WebView.new
webview.show
webview.open(url) # url is a string
Note
While I was trying to install the Gem I encountered some errors that were caused by dependencies not being installed in my system: ruby-gnome2-dev and libwebkitgtk-dev. Below I pasted the error messages for future reference.
### ruby-gnome2-dev dependency error
$ sudo gem install gtk-webkit-ruby
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing gtk-webkit-ruby:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
details. You may need configuration options.
Provided configuration options:
--with-opt-dir
--without-opt-dir
--with-opt-include
--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
--with-opt-lib
--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
--with-make-prog
--without-make-prog
--srcdir=.
--curdir
--ruby=/usr/bin/ruby1.8
extconf.rb:2:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf-gnome2 (LoadError)
from extconf.rb:2
Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/gtk-webkit-ruby-0.0.3 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/gtk-webkit-ruby-0.0.3/ext/webkit/gem_make.out
### libwebkitgtk-dev dependency error
$ sudo gem install gtk-webkit-ruby
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing gtk-webkit-ruby:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
checking for GCC... yes
checking for rb_define_alloc_func() in ruby.h... yes
checking for rb_block_proc() in ruby.h... yes
checking for new allocation framework... yes
checking for attribute assignment... yes
checking for gtk+-2.0... yes
checking for webkit-1.0... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
details. You may need configuration options.
Provided configuration options:
--with-opt-dir
--without-opt-dir
--with-opt-include
--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
--with-opt-lib
--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
--with-make-prog
--without-make-prog
--srcdir=.
--curdir
--ruby=/usr/bin/ruby1.8
--with-pkg-config
--without-pkg-config
--with-override-variables
--without-override-variables
Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/gtk-webkit-ruby-0.0.3 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/gtk-webkit-ruby-0.0.3/ext/webkit/gem_make.out
