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In a recent post, I shared my discovery of gem server as a way to access rdocs. The method I described required manually launching the WEBrick server from Terminal and navigating to your local RubyGem documentation in a web browser. In the interest of convenience, I decided to provide one-click access to the same sort of functionality through a new application for Mac OS X called RDoctor.

Access RDocs for Locally Installed RubyGems

RDoctor provides quick and convenient access to the documentation for all of the RubyGems installed on your local machine. It is essentially a simple, single-purpose web browser specifically designed to browse local rdocs.

At startup, RDoctor starts 'gem server' for you in the background and navigates to a page that shows a list of all of your installed RubyGems, with links to the rdocs and web site for each. You can move forward and backward through pages just like you would with a standard browser. (If you prefer, you can even open the page you are currently viewing in your default web browser.)

Generate Documentation for Ruby on Rails Plugins

You can also use RDoctor to generate documentation for plugins that are part of your Ruby on Rails projects. Simply select 'Generate RDocs for Plugins..." and navigate to your Rails project in the Finder.

After a few seconds, you can access the newly generated Rdocs for each plugin.

Download and Install RDoctor

RDoctor is a free tool offered as a service to the Ruby and Rails communities. To get started:

• Download the RDoctor Disk Image (5 MB)
• Double-click the rdoctor_installer.dmg
• Drag the RDoctor icon into your Applications folder

That's it! Now you can create and browse your documentation in style.

Troubleshooting

If RDoctor starts up with a blank screen, wait a few seconds and then click on the Home icon. This issue will be addressed in a new release in the next couple of days. Thanks to Brad at condense for the bug report.

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Comments

redmeades
April 16, 2009 at 1:43 AM

Hey. Thanks for the useful piece of software. One issue I have come up with: launching via QuickSilver it seems to use the OSX version of gem from /usr/bin; using "open ~/Applications/RDoctor.app" in the Terminal grabs the macports version from /opt/local/bin. Is there a way to prefer macports version if present?

Corey Ehmke
April 16, 2009 at 4:52 AM

I'll see what I can do to address this in the next version, which is already in the works. Thanks for the feedback!