Remapping Econtroller in Rails.vim - ruby-on-rails

I started using Vim to do my editing in Ruby on Rails, so I installed the Rails.vim plugin. I really like this plugin, but I have a few issues with it:
I have to type :Econtroller Controller to edit a controller. The same for models (:Emodel Model), etc. If I had a controller named people, it would be much easier to type :ec People and press enter. This would save me 9 characters, not counting every time I have to hit the shift key to capitalize the E!
I don't feel that I should have to capitalize the class name when opening the file as described in bullet #1. For example, if I do want to edit the People controller, I have to press the shift key before I even start to type the name of the class. Then, I type fast enough that I regularly hold down shift too long and People becomes PEople, then Rails.vim RENAMES the file to PEople!
If you have any solutions or suggestions, please let me know. Thank you for your help!

You can use :cabbrev to make exactly the shortcut you're asking for:
:cabbrev ec Econtroller
This way, when typing ec<space>, this will expand to Econtroller<space> anywhere on the command line. See :help abbreviations for more details.
As for capitalization, I don't actually think you need to capitalize the controller. At least on my installation of rails.vim, :Econtroller users works just fine to get me to the UsersController. Maybe you should update your rails.vim plugin?

Related

Komodo IDE Ruby on Rails Editor auto-insert code issues

I've searched all over this site, and since I don't know what this particular function is called, I'm not sure how to find the answer, so apologies if this is a repeat.
I'm a new Ruby On Rails dev using Komodo IDE. When I type something such as
def full_title
it auto-inserts a bunch of crap until the text looks like:
def fulll_title(args)
#code
end
How do I either get rid of the (args) and (#code) or make use of them? Having to manually delete that junk is getting really, really old. I'm fine with either solution as long as there IS a solution. I don't even know what that particular feature is called, so I'm having a really hard time Googling/finding the answer on my own
Komodo IDE calls this feature code intelligence, and here are a few unrelated questions on controlling it:
Komodo Edit disable autocomple
Calltips/Docstring while viewing function list?
Komodo Edit macro to replace a specific word in current document with clipboard content; is it possible?

In rails.vim why do I get "E345 can't find file in path" errors?

I've been learning Ruby/Rails with vim. Tim Pope's rails.vim seems like a really good tool to traverse files with, but I keep getting these pesky "E345 can't find file in path" errors. I'm not vim expert yet, so the solution isn't obvious. Additionally, I've tried this and it doesn't apply to my problem.
As an example of the problem. I have a method format_name defined in app/helpers/application_helper.rb and it is used in app/helpers/messages_helper.rb. Within the latter file I put my cursor over the usage of format_name and then hit gf and I get that error. Similar disfunction with commands like ]f and [f
However, it works sometimes. I was able to gf from user to the app/models/user.rb
Ideas?
I think that is a limitation of rails.vim. It does not support “finding” bare methods. Supporting something like that would require one of the following:
an exhaustive search of all the source files for each “find” request
(which could be expensive with large projects),
“dumb” indexing of method names
(e.g. Exuberant Ctags and gControl-]; see :help g_CTRL-]), or
smart enough parsing of the code to make a good guess where the method might be defined
(which is hard to do properly).
If you know where the method is, you can extend many of the navigation commands with a method name:
:Rhelper application#format_name
But, you do not have to type all of that in. Assuming the cursor is on format_name you can probably just type:RhTabspaceappTab#Control-R Control-W (see :help c_CTRL-R_CTRL-W).

Examples of getting it wrong first, on purpose

I just caught myself doing something I do a lot, and wanted to generalize it, express it, share it and see who else is following this general practice, to find some other example situations where it might be relevant.
The general practice is getting something wrong first, on purpose, to establish that everything else is right before undertaking the current task.
What I was trying to do, specifically, was to find examples in our code base where the dojo TextArea widget was used. I knew (because I had it in front of me - existence proof) that the TextBox widget was present in at least one file. So I looked first for what I knew was there:
grep -r digit.form.TextBox | grep -v
svn
This wasn't right - I had made a common (for me) mistake of leaving off the star, so I fixed that:
grep -r digit.form.TextBox * | grep
-v svn
which found no results! Quick comparison with the file I was looking at showed me I had misspelled "dijit":
grep -r dijit.form.TextBox * | grep
-v svn
And now I got results. Cool; doing it wrong first on purpose meant my query was correct except for looking for the wrong thing, so now I could construct the right query:
grep -r dijit.form.TextArea * | grep
-v svn
and be confident that when it gave me no results, it was because there are no such files, and not because I had malformed the query.
I'll add three other examples as answers; please add any others you're aware of.
TDD
The red-green-refactor cycle of test-driven development may be the archetype of this practice. With red, demonstrate that the functionality doesn't exist; then make it exist and demonstrate that you've done so by witnessing the green bar.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/275085
This VBA routine turns off the "subdatasheets" property for every table in your MS Access database. The user is instructed to make sure error-handling is set to "Break only on unhandled errors." The routine identifies tables needing the fix by the error that is thrown. I'm not sure this precisely fits your question, but it's always interesting to me that the error is being used in a non-error way.
Here's an example from VBA:
I also use camel case when I Dim my variables. ThisIsAnExampleOfCamelCase. As soon as I exit the VBA code line if Access doesn't change the lower case variable to camel case then I know I've got a typo. [OR, Option Explicit isn't set, which is the post topic.]
I also use this trick, several times an hour at least.
arrange - assert - act - assert
I sometimes like, in my tests, to add a counter-assertion before the action to show that the action is actually responsible for producing the desired outcome demonstrated by the concluding assertion.
When in doubt of my spelling, and of my editor's spell-checking
We use many editors. Many of them highlight misspelled words as I type them - some do not. I rely on automatic spell checking, but I can't always remember whether the editor of the moment has that feature. So I'll enter, say, "circuitx" and hit space. If it highlights, I'll back up over the space and the "x" and type another space - and learn that I spelled circuit correctly - but if it doesn't, I'll copy the word and paste it into a known spell-checker to see whether I did.
I'm not sure it's the best way to act, as it does not prevent you from mispelling the final command, for example typing "TestArea" or something like that instead of "TextArea" (your finger just have to slip a little for such a mistake).
IMHO the best way is to run your "final" command, but on two sample files first : one containing the requested text, another that doesn't.
In other words, instead of running a "similar" command, run the real one, but over "similar" data.
(Not sure if this would be a good idea to try for real!)
For example, you might give the system to the users for testing and tell them the password to get started is "Apple".
You know the users are fully up and ready to test (everything is installed and connections to databases working) when they contact you and say the password doesn't work (it's actually "Orange").

Pretty Print for (Informix-)4gl code

i'm searching for a pretty print program (script, code, whatever) for Informix-4GL sources.
Do you know any ? Than you, Peter.
Have you looked at the IIUG (International Informix User Group) software archive? There are two pretty printers there (of indeterminate quality).
The other place to look would be the Aubit4GL site - an open source variant of I4GL. Again, I'm not sure that they have a pretty-printer, but it might be something they have (though a casual check doesn't show one).
I don't know if anyone is reading this post anymore, but the easiest way to get some kind of nice "pretty print" of 4gl code is to view it in the Openedge Developer Studio, then use ctrl-I to set indention. You can adjust indention in the editor settings by saying the length of "tabs". (default is 4, I use 3)
Then do a ctrl-shift-f to make all command words uppercase.
Next, you can condense the code a few lines by moving all the "DO:" statements up a line next to the "THEN" statement with this regular expression search and replace.
ctrl-f:
search "\s*\n\s*DO[:]"
replace " DO:"
make sure you click the checkbox marked regular expressions.
At this point the code is nice and tidy.
Do a ctrl-a and ctrl-c to copy it to the clipboard.
paste it in Outlook as an email without sending. Print it in color.

Problems with Netbeans re: Rails erb/rhtml intellisense?

I've been using Netbeans for Rails and like it a lot, considering how little I paid for it. But something that bothers me is that when I'm editing an RHTML or ERB file, it doesn't do the code autocomplete - or at least not reliably. Sometimes it shows the appropriate variables and methods that are available on an object after you type the dot operator. Sometimes it ignores the instance variables. Is there a solution for this? (Please don't say RadRails).
Oh and one more thing in case anyone has solved this: considering how often I have to type <% when I'm in a Rails template, I wish there was some hotkey for autotyping the tag . . . ? I always have to stop and look down at my keyboard to find the < and % keys before I can type the tag so it's not as trivial as it might sound.
I believe you're looking for something like this:
http://ruby.netbeans.org/codetemplates-rhtml.html
Type in one of the triggers, then hit the tab key to expand it to the code as given.
Also, you might want to explore using HAML. It's much easier on the hands.

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