Any good Ruby console application gems out there?

Question

I'm digging around trying to find a good set of tools for creating console applications, as most of the settings I expect to be using Ruby in the coming months won't be webapps, but server-side scripts.

I know of highline, and I do plan on using that for user and possible password prompts, but I know that the Console application world should be chock-full of other gems to assist and/or enrich your plain 'ol command-line apps.

Does anyone have some good suggestions? I'm not exactly sure what I'm really looking for, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were gems in Ruby to help with colorizing, ascii-like art, user-interaction (similar to bash-completion), man-page similar tools (or generators) or just helpers for making the work of creating a richer console app not come across as being so difficult to understand, or plain and cryptic.

Answer 1

There seem to be a pretty comprehensive list here: http://whynotwiki.com/Ruby_/_Console_libraries

My personal favorite for larger console applications is SimpleConsole.

Answer 2

Here's some console related gems I've written you may like:

• bond - Custom readline autocompletion of methods, arguments and more.
• hirb - Framework for formatting ruby objects. Comes with tables, trees, selection menus and a smart pager.
• alias - Creates, manages and saves aliases for class methods, instance methods, constants, delegated methods.

I also have some delicious tag lists of ruby gems in these areas:

• console gems
• color gems
• command framework gems