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The Ruby on Rails paperclip plugin says that I need to install ImageMagick in order to use Paperclip. I'm typically really bad at getting things installed and running, so I was wondering if anyone could explain to me the exact specific steps I should take to get it installed and communicating with Paperclip.

I'm using Ruby on Rails on Mac OSX.

UPDATE:

I've already downloaded ImageMagick and extracted its contents. Now I need to make it communicate with Paperclip. However, I'm not sure if I've completely set up ImageMagick because the command which convert doesn't return anything...

Could anyone please help? I'd really appreciate it.

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You may have extracted the contents of the downloaded ImageMagick, but you likely did not install it. The easiest way to get open-source software installed on OS X is through MacPorts. Once you install the MacPorts package, it will allow you to install its software ports in /opt/local. You can install ImageMagick using:

sudo port install imagemagick

It will take care of any dependencies required. You can also use MacPorts to install Ruby on Rails. Hopefully this helps. The key goal I'm trying the relate is to use a software package manager that takes care of dependencies and updates for you with only a few tools you need to learn.

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i installed MacPorts, but when I run sudo port install ImageMagick I get sudo: port: command not found – Justin Meltzer Mar 27 '11 at 1:07
Check your ~/.profile. The MacPorts installer usually prepends /opt/local/bin to $PATH. If so, try echo $PATH and see if it's prepended. If it shows in ~/.profile but not in echo $PATH, re-open your terminal or run source ~/.profile. – fideli Mar 27 '11 at 1:14
Yea the problem was that since I installed Macports with my terminal open, I needed to re-open my terminal :) – Justin Meltzer Mar 27 '11 at 1:16
After ImageMagick is installed, what should I do from there? The instructions on the site are rather confusing for me. – Justin Meltzer Mar 27 '11 at 1:16
My thought is that you're exactly where you wanted to be at the start of your question. Running which convert should now return /opt/local/bin/convert. I would assume Paperclip would work now. However, I don't have much experience using Ruby. If you would like to go ahead and use MacPorts to install Ruby on Rails, you would be better off removing the one you have installed now before proceeding (unless it's the system one). – fideli Mar 27 '11 at 1:27
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I would better suggest to use Homebrew for installation on Mac rather than ports and then rvm (ruby enVironment manager) to install various rubies and manage gems.

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