Fast debugging, Ruby-aware editing, analytical IntelliSense and a drag and drop visual design environment for Ruby On Rails
Also, see: Ruby In Steel Text Edition Overview
How Is Ruby In Steel Developer Different?
The entire design and implementation of Ruby In Steel is guided by three principles:
Speed
If you’ve used other Ruby editors and IDEs, you are probably used to the idea that things happen slowly. Not so with Ruby In Steel Developer. Code completion appears almost instantly. And our exclusive ‘Cylon’ debugger is really, really fast!
Accuracy
IntelliSense doesn’t merely use lookup lists. Ruby In Steel analyzes and interprets your code while it is being written to infer information on objects, classes, methods and mixins. The Cylon debugger lets you drill down inside complex data structures to show all the internal details.
Innovation
Ruby In Steel Developer has the first full-page drag and drop visual designer for Ruby On Rails. It has an ultra-fast debugger with professional quality features such as conditional breakpoints, tracepoints and drill-down watch variables. It is the first IDE to support drag and drop design for Microsoft’s IronRuby and it even has an integrated debugger for Sun’s JRuby.
Here we provide a brief overview of just a few of the major features of Ruby In Steel...
Debugging
Ruby In Steel’s ultra-fast ‘Cylon’ debugger provides...
Speed
The ultra-fast ‘Cylon’ debugger
Ruby and Rails debugging is notoriously slow. Not any longer. Ruby In Steel’s Cylon debugger blazes through your code.
Breakpoints and Tracing
Step through your code
Step into/step-out/step-over code in Ruby and Rails applications.
Hover and Drill-down
Drill-down debugging
Drill-down debugging lets you look inside objects and expand arrays and hashes in the docked debugging windows, in the code editor or even right inside the interactive Ruby console!
Docked debug windows
Dynamic Debugging
Change variable values while debugging
Evaluate code and change the values of variables while debugging.
Conditional Breakpoints
Add conditions in Ruby code
Break when a condition (a test of one or more values) is met.
Other debugging features:
Tracepoints
JRuby Debugger
Break on exception
Break on hitcount
Run macro on break
The debugger is supported by a range of tools and windows including:
Watch
Locals
Autos
Quick Watch
Breakpoints
Call Stack.
Editing
Ruby In Steel provides extensive syntax-aware editing for Ruby and Rails.
Code Coloring and Code Folding
Code coloring and folding
The code editors provide customizable coloring - even for Ruby code embedded into Rails (R)HTML. Code folding operates on classes, modules, methods, if blocks and many other constructs - including user-defined collapsible regions...
Bracket and Keyword/end Matching
Keyword..end matching
Opening and closing brackets are highlighted. A keyboard shortcut lets you move you cursor between brackets or Ruby keyword/end pairs such as class...end and def..end.
Ruby In Steel also has...
Snippets with ‘edit points’
Snippets that auto-generate code blocks
Ruby and ERb Snippet editor
A Snippet editor to let you create your own snippets without coding
Smart or Block indenting to auto-align align your code
Automatic code formatting (a selected block or an entire document)
Plus all the editing features you would expect such as multi-level undo/redo, bookmarks, split-window editing and user definable macros.
IntelliSense
Ruby In Steel offers unparalleled analytical code completion and navigation tools for Ruby.
Fast Code Completion Analyzes Code As It Is Written
Drop-down lists provide relevant and accurate information on the methods that are available to objects and classes (both those in the Ruby and Rails libraries and those that you write yourself).
‘Local scope’ (Common) code completion
Dual-page completion lists let you show class-specific detail, for clarity (see above) or the members of the class and all its ancestors, for completeness (see below).
Broader scope (All) code completion
Code completion is automatically triggered by a dot after an identifier and by the double-colon :: scope resolution operator. Completion lists may also be triggered by CTRL-Space. The IntelliSense engine analyzes code as it is written and updates completion lists as appropriate. You may optionally tailor completion lists by specifically omitting elements such as ancestor class methods, global variables and keywords. Notice that embedded (RDOC) documentation for members is shown in a tooltip. You can also hover over classes and methods in the editor to view RDOC.
Tooltips and Parameter Completion
Parameter hints
Enter an opening bracket after a method name to see a highlighted hint showing parameters and their types.
Extra parameter information can be added via ‘type assertions’
In cases where classes cannot be inferred, add ‘type assertion’ comments for extra IntelliSense.
Tooltip hint for a variable
Hover over any object to see its fully-qualified (including ‘nested modules’) class name.
Speed
Unlike some other Ruby editors, the Ruby In Steel code completion is fast!
The Visual Rails Workbench
Ruby In Steel provides a unique visual design environment for Ruby On Rails.
Visual Designer
The visual designer lets you drag and drop controls from the Toolbox and move and resize them with the mouse.
You can adjust styles in a stylesheet or set properties for Ruby On Rails web pages in the Properties panel.
Code Editor
In code view the Document Outline displays a tree of the component parts and the editor highlights them in different coloured ‘overlays’ (indicating Layout, View, Partial).
Other features of the Visual Rails Workbench:
Split view code/form editing
Toggle ERb/RHTML editing between HTML editor and Rails (Ruby-aware) editor
Round-tripping between ‘web format’ HTML and ‘Rails format’ ERb/RHTML
Edit code as ERb/RHTML or as HTML
Document Navigator navigates document structure (HTML/CSS)/or methods (ERB/Ruby)
Quick navigation between controller and view
Import/Export to other web page design tools such as Dreamweaver/Expression Web
Save/restore named ‘versions’ of page designs to/from an archive of work in progress
Auto-backup of changes to templates
Support for Rails 1 and Rails 2
Ruby On Rails Tools
In addition to the Visual Rails Workbench, Ruby In Steel has deep support for Ruby On Rails Development
The Rake and Generate tools
It has project start-up wizards and (optionally) docked, tabbed and floating tool windows and dialogs such as:
Generators
Rake Tasks
Gem Run
RHTML Editing
RHTML editing with snippets
Code collapsing, code coloring, snippets, toggle between RHTML and HTML editing.
Analytical IntelliSense for Rails
Context-sensitive Rails code completion
Code completion is context sensitive for models, controllers, tests and views.
Code completion for embedded Ruby
Code completion even works on embedded Ruby in RHTML files.
One-click Debugging
Debug Ruby even embedded in RHTML templates
Debug Rails applications fast - even into embedded Ruby (in RHTML templates) - using the ‘Cylon’ One-Click Debugger.
There are many other Rails tools such as a quick toggle between the HTML and ERb (RHTML) editors to provide best support for either web page or embedded Ruby editing’; quick-jump navigation between a Controller action method and the matching view template;
Tools and Wizards
Docked or floating consoles
Fully integrated Ruby, Rails, Script and IRB consoles
Context-sensitive online documentation
RDOC window shows formatted documentation when you hover over an object identifier in the editor
The Ruby Explorer
The Ruby Explorer lets you navigate the class library - even into documentation extracted from C-source files
Context-sensitive Navigation Bars
Drop-down Navigation Bars over the editor for fast code navigation
The Ruby Connector
Connect .NET to Ruby with the Ruby Connector
To design visual front ends for your Ruby programs, call the Ruby interpreter from your .NET applications or create ‘hybrid’ applications combining Ruby and a .NET language use our drag-and-drop component, the ‘Ruby Connector’.
Manage projects in the Solution Explorer
Ruby In Steel projects are managed from the Visual Studio Solution Explorer. You can simply create, import or convert Ruby and Rails projects as well as add, move and delete files and folders. Ruby In Steel is fully configurable (colors, tab and formatting options etc.) and comes with a comprehensive PDF manual plus context-sensitive online help.
For more details, refer to The Feature List.
For a complete description of Ruby In Steel’s features, see The Manual.
Minimum Requirements: Windows XP (service pack 2) or Vista. Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 Standard Edition or above; alternatively, use the Ruby In Steel ’All-in-one installer’ to install a free Ruby-language copy of Visual Studio 2008.