Getting mmm-mode to work in emacs 24

Question

I have been trying to get mmm-mode to work, specifically for Rails development. I have followed the install instructions and I can't get to the specific mixed mode and special highlighting I was looking for. Most specifically erb files. Here is my .emacs file:

(custom-set-variables
 '(custom-enabled-themes (quote (zenburn)))
 '(custom-safe-themes (quote ("71b172ea4aad108801421cc5251edb6c792f3adbaecfa1c52e94e3d99634dee7" default)))
 '(show-paren-mode t))
(custom-set-faces
 )

;; File associations.
(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.builder$" . ruby-mode) auto-mode-alist))

(require 'mmm-auto)
(setq mmm-submode-decoration-level 0)
(mmm-add-group
 'fancy-html
 '((html-erb
    :submode ruby-mode
    :match-face (("<%#" . mmm-comment-submode-face)
                 ("<%=" . mmm-output-submode-face)
                 ("<%"  . mmm-code-submode-face))
    :front "<%[#=]?"
    :back "%>"
    :insert ((?% erb-code       nil @ "<%"  @ " " _ " " @ "%>" @)
             (?# erb-comment    nil @ "<%#" @ " " _ " " @ "%>" @)
             (?= erb-expression nil @ "<%=" @ " " _ " " @ "%>" @)))))

(add-to-list 'mmm-mode-ext-classes-alist '(html-mode nil fancy-html)) 

Despite having a smooth install process following the instructions I have yet to be able to get highlighting to work in my erb files. I am running emacs 24 if that matters. So I followed the directions on in the download. I placed the folder afterwards in my .emacs.d folder. I have access to mmm-mode stuff in M-x. I just don't get highlighting for my modes and I can't find any reference to the declared modes.

PS: Side note I can't get my zenburn theme to stick but that's a different mater.

EDIT: The "instructions" I am referring to are at THIS link and the INSTALL file included with the targz in the download.

Answer 1

Unfortunately Emacs has no good canonical multi-mode editing story. sanityinc (Steve Purcell) has patched up MMM-mode for Emacs 24 here: https://github.com/purcell/mmm-mode

His config is here: https://github.com/purcell/emacs.d

as init-ruby-mode.el and init-mmm.el

but it's far from ideal (no indentation support, only highlight special regions.)

Other have had luck with nxhtml.

EDIT: add pointer to sanityinc's config

Answer 2

An update on the situation:

1) The highlighting problems should be fixed now.

2) To get smart indentation, see mmm-erb.el in https://github.com/purcell/mmm-mode and the instructions in its header.