Setting up Vim for Ruby on Rails

Question

I work with Ruby on Rails and wish to use vim as the editor of choice. However, I can't find anywhere simple set of step by step,idiot proof, instructions with well explained steps as to how to set it up properly.

I wish to set vim properly, with nice plugins link vim for rails, nerdtree and stuff like that. Please help me, I would be most grateful.

So far I have installed RoR, vim, and git.

Answer 1

I was fiddling around with vim plugins as well, then I found out, that janus fits my needs quite well. It has a bunch of plugins I use regularily, like Ack.vim, NERDtree and SuperTab. And it is easy to install:

curl -Lo- http://bit.ly/janus-bootstrap | bash

I am not sure, if rails.vim is included or if I installed it myself. Check it out. Maybe it fits your needs.

Answer 2

You're probably not going to find "idiot proof" anything when it comes to vim. However, the good news is that it's really not that hard once you do it a few times. If you can get NERD tree installed, that's a good pattern for every other vim plugin out there.

The instructions for that plugin are simple enough.

Unzip the archive into your ~/.vim directory. That should put NERD_tree.vim in ~/.vim/plugin and NERD_tree.txt in ~/.vim/doc.

You don't really need any plugins to work with Ruby in vim, but the short list of plugins that I use regularly are:

• bufexplorer -- Easily the one that I use most often. Hundreds of times daily.
• NERD Commenter
• NERD tree
• rails

Of those, the one that I use the most has nothing to do with Ruby specifically, but I find it to be faster than checking :ls for a buffer number. As long as I have bufexplorer plugged in, and ack installed on the system, I'm ready to slay some Ruby code. The other plugins are just "nice-to-haves".