RMagick is a RubyGem that wraps ImageMagick’s features.
I never used it by myself but the project I’m working on uses a gem who depends on it.
I installed it twice. In the day I started working in the project and in my dev env rebuild last weekend. Both times it was a PITA. For different reasons.
The first time it was a conflict with a library MacPorts installed which I had to remove. Obviously after a lot of wasted hours.
This time it was a little bit harder to figure out. I installed ImageMagick via Homebrew and then installed RMagick via gem install. The installation went well and I wrongly assumed everything was fine, but when I tried script/server I got a frozen process. No error messages.
After a lot of research I discovered that even though RMagick 2.12.2 (latest available gem) compile against ImageMagick 6.5.6 (the version Homebrew installs) it only works with ImageMagick >= 6.5.8. My work around was a customized Homebrew formula for 6.5.9.
So, after the story, let’s make things happen.
Download the custom formula here.
Someone told me brew install -i
$ brew install imagemagick_rmagick --with-ghostscript
$ gem install rmagick
That should make you ok.
Ruby 1.8.6 note: it seems ruby 1.8.6 has an issue with RMagick and Snow Leopard. You can see all the hardcore details here. It’s safer to go with 1.8.7.
Homebrew note: I created an issue asking for a ImageMagick formula update. The custom formula won’t be required soon.
