WARNING: This blog entry was imported from my old blog on blogs.sun.com (which used different blogging software), so formatting and links may not be correct.
Let's start with the screenshot:
The thing to notice here is that we have a number of RSpec do-blocks in this file. Until now, only classes, methods, fields and attributes were showing up in the navigator. But in the latest daily builds, rspec do blocks like these are shown in the navigator (bottom left corner), along with the string summary (if any) such that you can quickly navigate between them. Placing the caret in one of these blocks will highlight the corresponding item in the navigator.
Adding a better navigator outline for spec files has been on the TODO list for a while, but apparently in the latest Rails builds regular tests are also switching away from using test methods to using test blocks (according to issue 137925, thanks James). So it seemed high time to do something about this.
The other thing to notice is that these blocks are also folded, so you can use Command-Shift-+ and - to collapse/expand all blocks quickly.
By the way, another old issue was fixed in NetBeans recently, which makes it easy to configure filetypes. In the past, if you wanted say .mab files to get Ruby treatment in the IDE, you'd file an issue and I'd modify the Ruby mimetype resolver to include it. The list is already pretty long -- .rb, .rake, .rxml, .rjs, .rbw, .rbx, .mab, .builder, .gemspec, and so on.
Now you can add any extra types you want yourself, using the Options | Miscellaneous | File Associations. Add any extensions you want, and bind them to the Ruby mime type and all the various Ruby editing machinery should kick in for files of that type.
NetBeans 6.5 Milestone 1 is about to be released and there are a lot of goodies there - both in the Ruby specific featureset as well as generic IDE support (such as the new Quick Search functionality). I'll look into that for another entry. And apologies for the long delay since my last entry - I blame it on a combination of having been sick, having taken some time off and having been busy with work...
