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Aaron Smith just released version 1.0 of RubyAMF – An open-source (MIT) remoting application for Ruby and Rails. This version is stable and it has really nice remoting implementation for Rails that makes it possible to use AMF right inside your controllers (i.e., no need for service classes). You can read all about it here. Aaron has also posted a great screencast tutorial on getting started with RubyAMF on Rails.

Keep up the good work Aaron!

At the end of my last post about RubyAMF I mentioned that I was particularly interested in how it could be used to extend Apollo applications using Ruby in the same way that Artemis makes it possible to extend Apollo with Java.

Here’s why:

• It enables AMF3 communication between Flex and Ruby.
• It comes with its own webrick servlet, so deploying RubyAMF is dead simple (if you have Ruby installed).
• It’s small: less than 300k. So it’s a quick download.

Here’s an example:

I put together a very simple demo app that uses RubyAMF to extend Apollo. I am calling the app Clairify (because everything needs a name). Clairify allows you to take a screenshot of whatever is underneath it, mark it up with some simple drawing tools and text boxes, and then save it to disk. The concept behind Clairify is that you could use it to quickly provide feedback on an application’s UI.

It would take several steps and downloads for many people to run the app, so I’ve put together a short video.

Here is a quick overview of what is going on in the video:

1. I launch Clairify.
2. When Clairify launches all you see are the controls. The rest of the app is transparent.
3. I then bring up the interface that I want to capture (the login screen of my simple issue tracker).
4. I click the capture button. This calls code in Ruby (see below) that captures the screen and saves the image to a PNG that Apollo loads.
5. I add some comments to screen.
6. I click save, which uses Apollo’s File API to save the marked up image to my desktop as PNG.
7. I open up the PNG in Fireworks.

Click here to view the video.

If you want to take a look at the Apollo source code, click here. (If you really want to know how to run this on your own machine let me know and I will put together some instructions).

And, here is the Ruby code:

require 'win32screenshot'
require 'RMagick'
include Magick

class CaptureService
  def screenCapture
    width, height, bitmap = Win32::Screenshot.desktop
    img_lst = ImageList.new
    img_lst.from_blob(bitmap)
    img_lst.write('public/screen.png')
    true
  end
end

Credits:
Clairify is based on the ScreenPlay app that is avalable on Adobe Labs.

RubyAMF is an open source Ruby application being developed by Aaron Smith that enables AMF0/3 communication between Flex/Flash and Ruby.

So, you might be asking yourself, how is this different from WebORB for Rails? Well, the main difference is in how the apps are architected. WebORB for Rails is built as Rails plugin. This makes it really easy to use WebORB for Rails with your Ruby on Rails applications. However, this means you need to use Rails if you want to use WebORB for Rails, even if you want to use it for an application that does require any Rails specific code.

RubyAMF, on the other hand, is designed to be integrated directly with a server and, as such, does not require Rails. It even comes with its own webrick servlet, which means that all you have to do to start RubyAMF is download it, point a command line to the root folder, and enter ruby server/start. This makes it dead simple to use RubyAMF to integrate Flex/Flash with a Ruby application. However, if you want to use RubyAMF with Rails then you are going to have to do a little extra work.

So, for right now my simple heuristic is that if you want to use AMF remoting with Rails, then use WebORB for Rails. If you want AMF remoting with just Ruby, then use RubyAMF. (I suppose the names make that kind of obvious).

That said, I think it would be relatively trivial to rearchitect either app to be like the other, but I think it is good that they are different. Choice is, generally, a good thing.

Right now the thing that has me most excited about RubyAMF is how it could potentially be used to extend Apollo using Ruby in much the same way that Artemis does using Java. More on this in my next post….