Ruby Shoes packager including Shoes in the app

Question

I can't seem to get the Ruby Shoes packager to correctly create an exe with Shoes included. I'm using the Raisins release (0.r1134), with the pack.rb replaced from github. The exe's the packager makes are all 70-80K files (they obviously don't include shoes or ruby). These exe's will run on my XP machine that already has Shoes on it. but when I copy them to another laptop they start a "Shoes is downloading" dialog that does nothing and then goes away.

I need to make standalone Windows exe's, and my understanding was that the "Yes, I want Shoes included" option in the packager would do that. Did I misunderstand the intent? Is there a way to make this work? Hope so, because I love Shoes. As most women do. Hmm... maybe Shoes was _why's attempt at getting more women into programming as well as kids...but I digress.

The other threads I've found here imply this will work:

Problem in Ruby Shoes packaging?

Shoes packager problem

Hipolitohipp

Answer 1

Although the pack.rb file now references the new website, shoes.heroku.com, it seems as if the files have fallen off it. So it won't be generating a proper .exe. Whoops.

You can work around this by placing the Shoes Raisins installer, if you have it, in the LIB_DIR and renaming it. E.g. this works for me:

D:\Users\me\.shoes\raisins\win32\latest_shoes-novideo.exe

pack.rb will check here before trying to download.

Note that you might still have issues with the executable working. Personally I've found distributing a .shy more reliable.

Some work needs to be done on packaging (I am involved with Shoes).

Platitude

A 'fixed' pack.rb that at least informs the user it can't download or find the files locally: github.com/i5m/shoes/blob/master/lib/shoes/pack.rb Trying to see if we can get the files back up. – Platitude

Thanks so much! I did come to this same conclusion after picking thru pack.rb, debugging what my LIB_DIR is set to, and figuring out that the exe needed is the installation exe. My executable does work after putting the shoes exe there. I could not generate an exe with multiple .rb files, however. All code must be in one .rb – Hipolitohipp

Can you tell me more about .shy? What is necessary to distrubute a .shy to another machine that does not have ruby/shoes on it? Glad to hear there are still folks actively involved with Shoes. – Hipolitohipp

Ok, the references are now back on shoes.heroku.com so it should download the files again now. But I haven't double checked yet - will tomorrow. Unfortunately if you distribute a shy file the other person will have to install Shoes themselves, so you'd have to distribute that as well. "I could not generate an exe with multiple .rb files, however..." I'll have a look into this. Packaging directories as shy files definitely works. – Platitude

Just checked and files need a slight rename on shoes.heroku.com. Will comment back when fixed. – Platitude

Should all be working now. Just did a test on OSX PPC and it downloaded and packaged ok. Bit slow because files aren't in a great place at the mo'. You shouldn't even need to replace your pack.rb again, but it might be advisable to for improved feedback. – Platitude