rkumar/rbcurse — Issue #11: unable to install and/or use rbcurse
Author: qwertologe
Created: 2012-02-20 19:17:53+00:00
State: open

I am new to ruby gem any help is welcome. I try to use rbcurse under:
ubuntu 11.10 Desktop 64 bit
ruby 1.8.7-352-2 # os default
rubygems 1.7.2-1 # os default

gem install --bindir ~/bin --install-dir ~/.gem/ruby/1.8 rbcurse # installed successfully into .../1.8/gems the following folders:
-> ffi-1.0.11, ffi-locale-1.0.1, ffi-ncurses-0.4.0, rbcurse-1.5.0, rbcurse-core-0.0.3

ruby abasiclist.rb # results in error_ abasiclist.rc:1:in `require': no such file to load -- rbcurse/core/util/app (LoadError)

RUBYLIB=`find ~/.gem -name lib -type d | tr "\012" ":"` ruby abasiclist.rb # results in:
./.gem/ruby/1.8gem/ffi-1.0.11/lib/ffo/library.rb:121:in `ffi_lib': Could no open library 'libncurses.so':/usr/lib/libncurses.so: file too short. (LoadError)

Content of /lib/ncurses.so:
INPUT(libncurses.so.5 -ltinfo)

This seems to be standard. Some other users have reported this, too.

Anyway someone said, that the could fix this problem with
sudo ln -s /lib/libncurses.so.5 /lib/ncurses.so # which could give other problems... but i have no better idea...

RUBYLIB=`find ~/.gem -name lib -type d | tr "\012" ":"` ruby abasiclist.rb # new result:
./.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/rbcurse-core-0.0.3/lib/rbcurse/core/widgets/rwidget.rb:33: uninitialized constant BOLD (NameError)

I don't known what
BOLD ||= FFI::NCurses::A_BOLD
means but if i remove the "||" it goes to the next line.. if i remove it from all 4 lines and start again i receive:
./.gem/ruby/1.8/gems/rbcurse-core-0.0.3/lib/rbcurse/core/util/widgetshortcuts.rb:96:in `def_widget': undefined `downcase' for :Button:Symbol) noMethodError)

i have seen a discussion about 1 year ago where you talked to someone about the sense for rbcurse theses days. Let me say a few words: I have a blind friend and he has a braille terminal which can display 80 characters in one line at once. He works 100% under Linux console and this is perfect since all applications use it exactly. He uses mutt. moc and vi. Some applications don't show the cursor or have the cursor at a secific line regardless of the focus which is a problem. In moc you can enable the cursor and it works fine. I search for a framework to write programs for him. In my opinion you have a really great framework and you should work for it to go into debian/ubuntu - this would help :-).

Thanks for your work and any help!

Kind regards
Michael