New To Ruby?

Welcome to the "Ruby Newbie" section. We'll try to point you in the right direction to get starting using Ruby to enhance your Sketchup experience. To help you experiment with Ruby you may want to take a quick look at the Ruby Console Tutorial.

Never Programmed Before?

Ruby is a good beginner's language, so if you have the desire to become a SketchUp plugin programmer you can certainly do so. That being said, the class and method reference documentation assumes a certain level of programming expertise. If you're completely new to both programming and Ruby the following list of resources might help you get your feet wet.

1. Read a book or tutorial on Ruby. There are many books and tutorials on Ruby available (some free and some for a fee). Free sources for Ruby instruction are:
   • "Programming Ruby" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby
   • "The "Ruby user's guide" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/UsersGuide/rg/
   • "Introduction to Ruby" online at http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/Tutorial/
   • "Learn to Program - A Tutorial for the Future Programmer" online at http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
   
   "For fee" resources can be found in your local book store's computer section or by searching online using the keyword "Ruby." These books and tutorials will help you to become familiar with both Ruby syntax (the rules of the language) and the standard Ruby API (the tools you will use).
   
   
2. Take a Ruby course. Ruby courses are beginning to be offered by universities and organizations around the world.
3. Create your own SketchUp Ruby script using any text editor and deploy it within SketchUp. We'll help! See the Ruby Console Tutorial to start.