Using The Solution Explorer
The Solution Explorer is your control center for Ruby and Rails projects. Here you can group together numerous related files and folders and add, remove or rename them as required.
To Add A New Project
Right-click the (top-level) Solution item. Select Add, New Project. Select the Project type from the Add New Project Dialog and continue as explained in How To Create a Project and How to Import a Project.
To Add A New File
Right-click a Project branch (indented beneath the top-level Solution item). Select Add, New Item. Now select a file type (Ruby File creates an empty Ruby .rb file; Ruby Module and Ruby Class create simple outlines for Modules and Classes; Empty Ruby/HTML File creates an empty Rails .rhtml file; Ruby/HTML File creates a very simple Rails .rhtml file). A number of other file types can be added in the same way.
To Add An Existing File From Disk
Right-click a Project branch. Select Add, Existing Item. Select a file on disk. Click Add.
To Add A New Folder
Right-click a Project Branch. Select Add, New Folder. This creates a subdirectory in the Project directory.
To Rename A File Or Folder
Select the File or Folder in the Solution Explorer. Press F2. Enter a new name.
To Exclude A File Or Folder From The Project
Right-click a File or Folder. Select Exclude From Project.
To Show All Files
Normally the Solution Explorer does not display files which are not included in a Ruby or Rails project but may, nonetheless, be present on disk (these include the Visual Studio and Ruby In Steel solution and project files with the extensions .sln, .suo and .stproj), files with the extension .log and files which you have specifically excluded from the project. You can force the display of all files in the application directories by selecting Show All Files from the Project menu; this also expands all branches of the Solution Explorer. Click the menu item again to resume the default view. The Solution Explorer itself also has a small Show All Files button (when a project node is selected) beneath its caption bar.
To Synchronize
If files have been added or deleted from a project's directory outside of Visual Studio, the display of the files in the project can be brought up to date by clicking the Synchronize button beneath the Solution Explorer's caption bar. For more information, see: Synchronize
To Open A Command Prompt In A Directory
With Ruby In Steel there is no need to navigate to a directory from the system prompt. Just right-click a file or folder in the Solution Explorer and select Command Prompt from the menu. This opens a command window in the selected directory.