cheat sheets.

for windows users
=================

== install ruby first.
Use windows one-click installer 1.8.6 (26)
http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167
install into default location c:\ruby

== update rubygems
the default rubygems on that ruby installer is old.
$ gem update --system
if you are behind firewall use proxy server settings
$ gem update --system -p http://host:port
or set environment var
$ set HTTP_PROXY=http://host:port

== Install watir 
gem (currently 1.6.5)
$ gem install watir

== watir-console (irb = interactive ruby)
start cmd.exe windows terminal and execute this
$ watir-console
you will get a prompt to talk to ruby. 
watir-console is a watir executable that invokes IRB.
study it here c:\ruby\lib\bin\watir-console

>> browser = Watir::Browser.start "http://watir.com/"
=> #<Watir::IE:0x2d5d00c url="http://watir.com/" title="Watir">

the above commands will start default browser (IE) and navigate to watir.com
use irb to talk to the browser
>> browser.class #=> Watir::IE class that talks to IE on windows
>> Watir::IE::VERSION #=> will output the version of watir library (1.6.5)

all the commands you enter into watir-console will be automatically saved in
'console.log' file in your current working directory.
$ Dir.pwd #=> this will tell you what directory you are in and where to find
your 'console.log' file.

>> require 'pp' #=> this will make pretty printing of objects, just do it

Here are class methods of Watir::IE
>> pp browser.class.methods(false).sort
There are about 20.
get familiar with the following
["attach", "close_all", "find", "start",]
example: attach to the window with a title Watir
>>browser = Watir::IE.attach(:title, /Watir/)

Here are instance methods
>> pp browser.class.instance_methods(false).sort
that's about 70 useful methods. 
Now you can experiment with browser object started with Watir::IE

browser.class is the same as Watir::IE so in this example
the above command is the same as this
>> pp Watir::IE.instance_methods(false).sort


Find methods
>> pp Watir::IE.instance_methods.grep(/show_/)
["show_frames",
 "show_active",
 "show_images",
 "show_divs",
 "show_links",
 "show_tables",
 "show_forms",
 "show_pres",
 "show_all_objects",
 "show_spans",
 "show_labels"]
=> nil

The show methods are great in showing what's in the DOM
example on watir.com
>> browser.show_forms
There are 1 forms
Form name:
       id: search_form
   method: get
   action: http://watir.com/


(by @rubytester)