Rails on Notepad++

*EDIT* after coding sometime I decided to redo some of the color schemes. Specifically, the color balance was off.

I’ve replaced the links and images with the new ones below.

Notepad++ with Launchy is now my official Rails development IDE. Launchy is to emulate “open resource” of eclipse – something that I can’t live without anymore. Notepad++ is lighter, faster, cleaner, and with some good color schemes and customization, a very comfortable editor especially for those long long coding nights.

Launchy is a great open source command line launcher that caches all the files with extensions that you want inside a folder. To make it emulate open resource, add .erb .rb .css extensions, and make it cache the folder that contains your project. Also make sure .erb, .rb, and .css files are associated with Notepad++. Finally, set the shortcut to whatever open resource used to be (ctrl+shift+r for me).

pink?? (it stands out). You can replace it with Yellow or something less trendy if you want.

If you are in doubt at how good Notepad++ can look, check this out:

colors used for .rb

I have both a custom color styles and a custom keyboard shortcuts: The custom font in the styles is Consolas.

To use replace the old xml in your %APPDATA%/Notepad++/ (typically, c:/documents and settings/<username>/application data/Notepad++/ it might be hidden). Back it up first!

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new colorscheme:

stylers.xml

old colorscheme:

stylers.xml (Right click, save link as… Rename it to stylers.xml)

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Also, if you are having trouble with .erb files having wierd <% %> tags, overwrite the old SciLexer.dll with this one in your C:/Program Files/Notepad++ folder: scilexer.dll (rename to SciLexer.dll) Notepad++ hardcodes <% to be read as ASP tags and treats ‘ as a comment. The new SciLexer.dll is a compiled version that removes the check for the ‘ as a comment in ASP tags (it doesn’t fix all the problems of it, but it looks good enough).

shortcuts.xml (Right click, save link as… Rename it to shortcuts.xml)

One day I’ll figure out how to upload xml files into a blog post.

The only thing that I have yet to do is to open up a console in Notepad++; I’m sure its doable too.