How to improve the way I use Textmate for Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS and Javascript?

Question

I use the latest version of textmate for all my Rails development needs and I feel that I\'m under-using the possibilities or this software. I only installed the Ruby on Rails b

Answer 1

I've been using TextMate for a while now, and one of the best things about the application is the ability to extend it using bundles. As Yaraher said, there are lots of resources out there, and you should go and take a look.

My only other piece of advice is this: when you find yourself doing something with TextMate over and over, and it is a pain, or you think that it could really do with this or that feature, think about how you could do that with your favourite scripting language. If you can write a script for your feature, you can add it as a command that TextMate can use - have a look at the bundle editor (Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+B) and the existing commands, it is pretty straightforward.

Answer 2

Indeed, take a look at the bundles that are available and definitly keep it in mind if you find that you are repeating or using the same stuff a lot. You'll end up with a lot of snippets in no time!

Think like <link rel="stylesheet" href="/public/stylesheets/screen.css"> can very easily be extracted into a snippet so the only thing you would have to type would be the link to the stylesheet itself.

This might seem like not a big deal but just think about the amount of times you've had to type something like this. Mastering Textmate is all about saving yourself from unnecessary keystrokes and making it work for you instead of the other way around.

Answer 3

I can recommend looking at these (Note: PDFs):

http://pragmaticstudio.com/rails (Rails TextMate Cheat Sheet)

http://www.g-design.net/textmate.pdf (HTML/CSS/Javascript/Other TextMate Cheat Sheet)

It would also be beneficial to look at the bundle editor (Cmd+Opt+Ctrl+B) and just look around at how the general bundles are setup. I did that, then shortly after started making little snippets in my own bundle to expedite things which I do most often.

Hope this helps, and good luck!