JetBrains RubyMine Blog

We were getting a number of questions about Bundler gem support in RubyMine. Bundler is a nice tool that manages gem dependencies for your ruby applications created by Yehuda Katz (aka wycats).

So, we went and added the appropriate support for it. The new functionality will be available in the really-soon-to-be-released RubyMine 2.0.1

To bundle gems into your application you simply need to execute the Tools->Bundle Gems. This will open the console and run the gem bundle command. This menu item becomes available once you have the Bundler gem installed in your selected Ruby SDK.

Click the image below to see the full screenshot.

Once you bundled you gems, they will show up as ‘frozen’ in Gem Manager.

It is really important to note that RubyMine manages gems not to just manage them but with the purpose to provide a better code insight and completion. For IDE performance sake we do not scan ALL gems installed under the SDK, but only those attached to your project. So, do not ignore those ‘Some of the required gems are not attached’ warnings if you want to experience what “the smart IDE” really means.

If there’s something you’d love to have added/fixed in RubyMine:

• add/vote an issue in YouTrack issue tracker
• Write on RubyMine discussion forum
• Ping @rubymine on Twitter

Develop with pleasure!
JetBrains RubyMine Team

I remember in some CRPGs I had used gems to improve a weapon or an armor. Ruby gems are somewhat similar — we pick good ones and use them in our projects to make them ‘killing’

RubyMine needs to know of gems used in the code in order to provide you with the intelligent code analysis and coding assistance in general. So, we are constantly working on improving our gem manager, and a couple of new things has just been added.

1. Gem manager now lets you quickly see which of your gems are not up-to-date.

Just click ‘Update Gems’ button in gem manager

You will get the list of your project gems that you may want to update.

Turn off the ‘Show only attached gems’ option and you will see all gems that may need to be updated in your SDK. You can choose to update one, some or all gems.

2. Sometimes when opening a file you may notice a yellow notification about missing gems.

RubyMine detects some gems are not attached from lines of code such as gem 'foo'.

You can click the ‘Install…’ link and get the gems installed and attached to the project automatically.

These features will be available in RubyMine 1.2 and in RubyMine 1.5 EAP. Both should be released in the nearest future. Stay tuned!

Posted by Eugene Toporov, Marketing Manager

We’ve added a basic Ruby gem manager functionality in the latest EAP build.

It allows you to browse local gems inside a selected Ruby SDK and choose the ones you need in the project including the dependent ones. For Rails projects, the latest found version of Rails is auto-added.

That’s almost all that we have now. But this is far from all we plan.

So, here is what’s coming soon:

1. Browse remote gem repositories and install gems. rubyforge.org is the default, of course.
2. Want a new Rails project but Ruby on Rails is not there? Hardly possible, but in case it happens, the needed gems will be downloaded and installed on the project creation.
3. Want to debug your app, but debugger gems not installed? RubyMine will handle it automatically.

For dessert, here is the list of gems from http://gems.rubyonrails.org

Already tried the Rails 2.3.0 RC1, by the way?

Which of the new features you think RubyMine should have first? Let us know!

Posted by Eugene Toporov, Marketing Manager

We’ve heard people complaining about RubyMine indexing all the gems available in the Ruby SDK upon project opening. Yes, it does take time if you have loads of gems installed.

Of course we’re not going to ignore the people’s voice and we are now almost ready to release a solution for this problem, and for other tasks, — a Ruby Gem Manager.

Couple of concepts… There are all gems available in the selected Ruby SDK and then there are ‘active’ gems assigned to the project. Only active gems are indexed.

Here’s some intelligence the Gem Manager has:

1. On project open, RubyMine autodetects the required gems and activates them for the project, including the dependent gems.
2. If you add a gem manually, the required gems are added automatically (this is optional).
3. The latest applicable gem versions are activated. You can always activate older versions manually.

This is just a start. We have some other ideas to implement in the manager. If you have any, too, please share with us and the world.

The new EAP build is coming in a day or two. Meanwhile, two screenshots to please your eyes: