Remember when everybody and their mother was using TextMate for Ruby on Rails development? Well if it wasn't for rails.vim, we'd still be in that era. So shut up and pay some respect. And check out these features:

• Easy navigation of the Rails directory structure. gf considers context and knows about partials, fixtures, and much more. There are two commands, :A (alternate) and :R (related) for easy jumping between files, including favorites like model to migration, template to helper, and controller to functional test. For more advanced usage, :Rmodel, :Rview, :Rcontroller, and several other commands are provided. :help rails-navigation

• Enhanced syntax highlighting. From has_and_belongs_to_many to distance_of_time_in_words, it's here. For easy completion of these long method names, 'completefunc' is set to enable syntax based completion on CTRL-X CTRL-U.

• Interface to rake. Use :Rake to run the current test, spec, or feature. Use :.Rake to do a focused run of just the method, example, or scenario on the current line. :Rake can also run arbitrary migrations, load individual fixtures, and more. :help rails-rake

• Interface to script/*. Generally, use :Rscript about to call script/about or script/rails about. Most commands have wrappers with additional features: :Rgenerate controller Blog generates a blog controller and edits app/controllers/blog_controller.rb. :help rails-scripts

• Partial extraction and migration inversion. :Rextract {file} replaces the desired range (ideally selected in visual line mode) with render :partial => '{file}', which is automatically created with your content. The @{file} instance variable is replaced with the {file} local variable. :Rinvert takes a self.up migration and writes a self.down. :help rails-refactoring

• Integration with other plugins. :Rtree spawns NERDTree.vim. If dbext.vim is installed, it will be transparently configured to reflect database.yml. Users of abolish.vim get pluralize and tableize coercions, and users of bundler.vim get bundle exec rake. :help rails-integration

If you don't have a preferred installation method, I recommend installing pathogen.vim, and then simply copy and paste:

cd ~/.vim/bundle
git clone git:https://github.com/tpope/vim-rails.git

Once help tags have been generated, you can view the manual with :help rails.

I installed the plugin and started Vim. Why does only the :Rails command exist?

This plugin cares about the current file, not the current working directory. Edit a file from a Rails application.

I opened a new tab. Why does only the :Rails command exist?

This plugin cares about the current file, not the current working directory. Edit a file from a Rails application. You can use the :RT family of commands to open a new tab and edit a file at the same time.

Can I use rails.vim to edit Rails engines?

It's not supported, but if you touch config/environment.rb in the root of the engine, things should mostly work.

Can I use rails.vim to edit other Ruby projects?

I wrote rake.vim for exactly that purpose. It activates for any project with a Rakefile that's not a Rails application.

Is Rails 3 supported yet?

Of course.

Is Rails 2 still supported?

Baby, you can go all the way back to Rails 1 if you like (give or take some syntax highlighting).

Can I use rails.vim with engines?

Not officially, but if you create config/environment.rb in the root of the engine, it will mostly work.

Rake is slow. How about making :Rake run testrb/rspec/cucumber directly instead of rake?

Well then it wouldn't make sense to call it :Rake, now, would it? Maybe one day I'll add a separate :Run command or something. In the meantime, here's how you can set up :make to run the current test:

autocmd FileType cucumber compiler cucumber | setl makeprg=cucumber\ \"%:p\"
autocmd FileType ruby
      \ if expand('%') =~# '_test\.rb$' |
      \   compiler rubyunit | setl makeprg=testrb\ \"%:p\" |
      \ elseif expand('%') =~# '_spec\.rb$' |
      \   compiler rspec | setl makeprg=rspec\ \"%:p\" |
      \ else |
      \   compiler ruby | setl makeprg=ruby\ -wc\ \"%:p\" |
      \ endif
autocmd User Bundler
      \ if &makeprg !~# 'bundle' | setl makeprg^=bundle\ exec\  | endif

If your commit message sucks, I'm not going to accept your pull request. I've explained very politely dozens of times that my general guidelines are absolute rules on my own repositories, so I may lack the energy to explain it to you yet another time. And please, if I ask you to change something, git commit --amend.

Beyond that, don't be shy about asking before patching. What takes you hours might take me minutes simply because I have both domain knowledge and a perverse knowledge of VimScript so vast that many would consider it a symptom of mental illness. On the flip side, some ideas I'll reject no matter how good the implementation is. "Send a patch" is an edge case answer in my book.

Like rails.vim? Follow the repository on GitHub and vote for it on vim.org. And if you're feeling especially charitable, follow tpope on Twitter and GitHub.

Copyright (c) Tim Pope. Distributed under the same terms as Vim itself. See :help license.