Ubuntu Linux Editor / Prettiefier

Rails
21
  1. Move the cursor to the start of the text you want to select.
  2. Set a starting mark using Ctrl + Space.
  3. Move the cursor to the end of the text you want to select.
  4. Copy the text using Alt + w, or cut the text using Ctrl + w.
  5. Move the cursor to wherever.
  6. Ctrl + y to paste.

Thanks Greg that is perfect - somehow I had completely missed that. I
notice now that the tutorial describes C-w but does not mention M-w

Tonypm

22

Definitely recommend Vim if you have the patience and time to learn
it. (you will get frustrated at first) I use it on Windows, Linux and
OS X. In addition to the excellent plugins below, these are pretty
good too:

Command-T
SnipMate

23

tonypm wrote:
[…]

When you’ve been used to the normal windows
style keystrokes,

“Normal”? What makes them any more or less “normal”?

the emacs ones take a bit of getting used to. But
I am getting there by forcing myself to use it for my real
development. I am already beginning to feel more comfortable.

[…]

NetBeans is an excellent IDE, but it’s overkill for Rails. �(I’d be
curious to know about it’s sluggishness, though – it has consistently
been pretty fast for me on Snow Leopard.)
I do like NetBeans, but I found it is hungry on resource, and I notice
a distinct delay when browsing the file tree or opening a file etc.
Also, the auto suggest popup boxes keep coming on. I turn them off
but they reappear. I find that annoying because they frequently pop
up just as I have finished entering a line, and their appearance
causes a delay whilst they are escaped. I may be missing a setting
somewhere to turn them off. For portability, I actually use a small
machine for development, which is probably why NB feels a bit slow.

Right! You don’t need a heavy IDE for Rails, so don’t use one.

[…]

�Syntax highlighting is great

Any better than in other editors?
Not necessarily better, but haml and sass highlighting is available
which is not true for all other editors (I actually like bluefish a
lot, but I havn’t found a haml/sass option). Flagging of syntax
errors seems pretty good too.

KomodoEdit has a Haml module (not Sass, though), which is one of the
reasons I really like it for Rails.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

24

Marnen

Thanks for your comments

Ah, good point. Emacs is my favorite console editor, but I’m not all
that crazy about the graphical versions I’ve tried.

Actually, I use Fedora, and installed the gnome version of emacs, so I
do have the graphical console, but your comment about learning the
keystrokes is valid. When you’ve been used to the normal windows
style keystrokes, the emacs ones take a bit of getting used to. But
I am getting there by forcing myself to use it for my real
development. I am already beginning to feel more comfortable.

NetBeans is an excellent IDE, but it’s overkill for Rails. (I’d be
curious to know about it’s sluggishness, though – it has consistently
been pretty fast for me on Snow Leopard.)
I do like NetBeans, but I found it is hungry on resource, and I notice
a distinct delay when browsing the file tree or opening a file etc.
Also, the auto suggest popup boxes keep coming on. I turn them off
but they reappear. I find that annoying because they frequently pop
up just as I have finished entering a line, and their appearance
causes a delay whilst they are escaped. I may be missing a setting
somewhere to turn them off. For portability, I actually use a small
machine for development, which is probably why NB feels a bit slow.

Then I’d almost say you shouldn’t use Emacs. You definitely have to be
comfortable with keyboard commands to get the most out of it.
I already make good use of filename auto complete in the linux shell
and am finding using that for locating files is good. I have figured
out that using partial complete brings up a list of filenames for
selection and I am getting to really like that.

Syntax highlighting is great

Any better than in other editors?
Not necessarily better, but haml and sass highlighting is available
which is not true for all other editors (I actually like bluefish a
lot, but I havn’t found a haml/sass option). Flagging of syntax
errors seems pretty good too.

You might want to investigate a GUI version of Emacs, then. I don’t
like the ones I’ve tried, but you might.
The Gnome emacs has a Buffers command in the menu which is great, but
I get a 2 second delay between clicking a command and the menu
appearing. Also, I do a lot of work across vpn to my sites, so I want
to force myself to learn the keystrokes rather than depend on the
menu. I have to admit to using the menu cut and paste quite a bit. I
haven’t yet mastered doing this easily with keystrokes (i know there
is a way of switching emacs to use the standard cut and paste
keystrokes, but it seemed that doing that would interfere with other
emacs commands so I haven’t tried it - perhaps I should).
I do like the ability to operate on a rectangle of text though, on
some occasions this can be useful.

IMHO, so does KomodoEdit. Actually, Emacs “coming close to [TextMate]”
is a funny statement: Emacs is probably the more powerful of the two.

I havn’t used Textmate, so I was really only commenting on what I had
read.

The two areas I want to start to get to grips with now are auto
formatting and text snippets, but where do I find the info for them?
eg what is the correct way to create a new def. With NB, when you
start a def, the end is often created automatically with correct
indentation. How can I do that in emacs?

C-k, C-y, C-y. There may be a faster way. If you don’t know this, you
really need to spend time on Emacs basics.
I have started using this sequence, it just seemed a bit odd to remove
something first to replace it twice but after a while you don’t even
notice.

Tonypm

25

“Normal”? What makes them any more or less “normal”?

i just knew someone would pick up on that comment!! I added in
Windows to clarify, but re reading what I wrote, I should have said
cut and paste buffer keystrokes, which is what I think was
predominantly in my mind. The reason I stuck with the wording normal,
was that it occurred to me these were not just windows keystrokes but
the keystrokes used by most web browsers, which these days IMHO makes
them pretty much the norm.

But what the heck - I am getting better with emacs all the time,
running the console in one of the buffers is working well, and
switching between buffers to re run commands etc is now becoming much
more automatic. I just need to learn to resist the temptation to pick
up the mouse!

Tonypm

26

Enable Ido: EmacsWiki: Interactively Do Things

It gives nice buffer navigation.

With that, C-x 2 (split window), C-x 1, and binding
(define-key global-map “\C-x\C-o” 'other-window)

you won’t have to take your hands off the kdb to move around buffers.