Neutron

Neutron is a mini framework to build desktop app with Electron and Ruby. Neutron follow the pattern MVC where the V is handled by Electron and (if you want) ReactJS. The MC is handled with pure Ruby code.

Installation

Install it yourself as:

$ gem install neutron-ruby-electron

Usage

First of all generate a new Neutron project:

$ neutron project_name

It will generate a new folder with the follow tree

.
├── LICENSE.txt
├── README.md
└── src
    ├── Gemfile
    ├── Gemfile.lock
    ├── assets
    │   ├── index.html
    │   ├── javascripts
    │   │   ├── components
    │   │   │   └── neutron_entry_point_component.js
    │   │   └── neutron.js
    │   └── stylesheets
    ├── backend.rb
    ├── main.rb
    ├── main_window.js
    ├── node_modules/
    └── package.json

You can run the just generated app with the command:

$ cd project_name/src
$ ruby main.rb

The main.rb is the main of your app.
The main_window.js is the Electron entry point file where the Electron app and the main browser window are created.
The backend.rb is a Ruby class where you can add your instance methods that can be called from the view, from your React components of your Javascript code. This class extends Neutron::Controller and looks like this: ``` class MyController < Neutron::Controller def ping return 'pong' end

def add(a, b) return(a + b) end end

- The `neutron_entry_point_component.js` is the main component that render all your application.


### Communication between Electron and Ruby

Inside a React component you can import the Neutron module with

    import neutron from 'neutron'

and use neutron to call a controller method like this:

    neutron.send('method_name', [params], options).then((result) => {...}).catch((error) => {...})

You can call a Ruby Controller method with `neutron.send` method that return a JS promise with the return value of the method or an error.

For example you can have a component like this:

import React from 'react' import neutron from 'neutron'

export default class Sum extends React.Component

constructor(props) { super(props) this.state = { }

sum() { const a = parseInt(this.a.value) const b = parseInt(this.b.value) neutron.send('add', [a, b]).then((result) => { this.setState(result) }).catch((error) => { console.log(error) }) }

render() { return(

this.a = input/> + this.b = input/> = thisthis.statethis.state.result

) } }

In this componenet the sum is calculated by the method `add` in the Ruby controller.


## Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/pioz/neutron-ruby-electron.


## License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the [MIT License](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).