Rails Tutorial Sublime Text setup

These are the steps needed to set up Sublime Text 2 as in the Ruby on Rails Tutorial. Instructions are for OS X; Linux and Windows users should make substitutions as necessary. (This may require web searches. Please let me know if you find something that you think should be included here.)

Command-line command

On OS X, you can set up subl as a command-line command like this:

$ ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/bin/subl

This assumes that there is a ~/bin directory on your executable path. If that isn't the case, follow the instructions on this Stack Overflow thread.

On Linux (especially Ubuntu), the command is similar to OS X; the paths differ and you must use sudo, which is required because ordinary users don't have permission to write to /usr/bin:

$ sudo ln -s ~/Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text /usr/bin/subl

Alternatively, add an alias to sublime_text in your ~/.bashrc file. This method doesn't require sudo. But it assumes you are using bash. There are similar methods available for other shells. Google is your friend.

Use any editor like gedit or vim to open ~/.bashrc.

$ gedit ~/.bashrc

Add alias subl='~/Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text' at the end of the file. Save and exit.

(You may have to replace the path to sublime_text with the correct one for your system.)

On Linux Mint, take a look at Install Sublime Text 2 in Linux Mint.

On Windows, you can simply double-click the application icon. The setup at the command line depends on which shell you use; see if one of the techinques at the Stack Overflow discussion on Sublime Text from Command Line (Win7) works for you. You might also want to check out the video Easily Open Files from Windows Command Prompt with Sublime Text 2 (I suggest changing st2 to subl to be consistent with the instructions for the other platforms).

Basic configuration

Open up Sublime Text and use the View menu to modify the following settings:

View > Hide Minimap

View > Side Bar > Hide Side Bar

View > Layout > Columns: 2

Copy auxiliary files

$ cd /tmp
$ git clone https://github.com/mhartl/rails_tutorial_sublime_text.git
$ cp -r rails_tutorial_sublime_text/* \
        ~/Library/Application\ Support/Sublime\ Text\ 2/Packages/User/

Setup on Linux is similar, but with a different target directory for cp:

$ cp -r rails_tutorial_sublime_text/* \
        ~/.config/sublime-text-2/Packages/User/

On Windows, the target directory is as follows:

$ cd /tmp
$ git clone https://github.com/mhartl/rails_tutorial_sublime_text.git
$ cp -r .\rails_tutorial_sublime_text\* \
        '~\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2\Packages\User'

Note: If using Windows Vista, 7, or 8, you should first copy all the folders and files from the remote repo into your local temporary folder located at C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp. Then proceed to move these same files to C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Sublime Text 2\Packages\User.

Install Sass syntax highlighting

Install Package Control and then go to Preferences > Package Control. Select Install Package and then select the Sass package.

Set up the theme

Select Preferences > Color Scheme > User > Railscasts

Install the Rails Tutorial snippets

https://github.com/mhartl/rails_tutorial_snippets

Install Sublime Text Alternative Auto-completion

https://github.com/alexstaubo/sublime_text_alternative_autocompletion

Install SublimeERB

https://github.com/eddorre/SublimeERB

Install RubyTest

Follow https://github.com/maltize/sublime-text-2-ruby-tests, or install RubyTest using Package Control.

Go to Preferences > Package Settings > RubyTest > Settings - User and paste in the following code:

{
  "check_for_rbenv": true,
  "check_for_rvm": true,
  "check_for_bundler": true
}

If you want the "Red" part of "Red-Green-Refactor" to be truly red, edit the file "TestConsole.hidden-tmTheme" in the Library/Application\ Support/Sublime\ Text\ 2/Packages/RubyTest directory:

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Sublime\ Text\ 2/Packages/RubyTest
$ subl TestConsole.hidden-tmTheme

In that file, change

<string>#FF1493</string>

to

<string>#FF0000</string>

You may have to restart Sublime Text 2 to activate the change.

If you ever get the error

/bin/sh: rspec: command not found

you can simply quit Sublime Text and then restart it by typing

$ subl

(with no dot).