= irbtools

This is a meta gem which installs some useful irb gems and configures your irb.

== Setup

  gem install irbtools
  
* On Linux, you also need +xclip+: sudo <tt>apt-get install xclip</tt>
* On Windows, you need ansicon[https://github.com/adoxa/ansicon]
* On MacOS, you will need growl, if you want to use the +g+ gem.

=== Wrong display widths?
When using double-width unicode chars, you should need to pass the <tt>:east_asian_width = true</tt> when starting <tt>FancyIrb</tt>. It is deactivated because of performance issues.

== Usage

To use it, put the following in your <tt>~/.irbrc</tt> file (this file is loaded every time you start an irb):

  require 'rubygems' unless defined? Gem # rubygems is only needed in 1.8
  require 'irbtools'

If it does not exist, just create a new one.

It's possible to modify, which libraries get loaded:

  require 'irbtools/configure'
  # here you can modify which libraries get loaded (see below)
  Irbtools.init

=== Rails notes

To use irbtools within the rails console, you will have to add irbtools to your Gemfile.

You can put Rails specific configuration in a <tt>~/.railsrc</tt> file which gets loaded only in Rails environments.

=== How to load more or less libraries

You have the following ways:
* <tt>Irbtools.add_library(lib, in_proc = false, &block)</tt>
* <tt>Irbtools.remove_library(lib)</tt>
* <tt>Irbtools.add_package(pkg)</tt>
* <tt>Irbtools.remove_package(pkg)</tt>

Edit the <tt>Irbtools.libraries</tt>, <tt>Irbtools.libraries_in_proc</tt> or <tt>Irbtools.packages</tt> arrays directly. If you use the <tt>add_library</tt> method, you can apply a block which gets executed when the library is loaded.

== Features

See http://rbjl.net/40-irbtools-release-the-power-of-irb or read the commented source files.

=== Included gems and libraries

* wirb[https://github.com/janlelis/wirb/]      colorize output
* hirb[http://tagaholic.me/2009/03/13/hirb-irb-on-the-good-stuff.html]     (active record) tables and custom views for specific objects
* fancy_irb[https://github.com/janlelis/fancy_irb]   put result as comment and more colorization
* *fileutils* (stdlib) cd, pwd, ln_s, mv, rm, mkdir, touch ... ;)
* clipboard[http://github.com/janlelis/clipboard]     easy clipboard access (copy & paste)
* interactive_editor[https://github.com/jberkel/interactive_editor]    lets you open vim, hack something, and it gets loaded into the current session
* sketches[http://sketches.rubyforge.org/]   another, more flexible "start editor and it gets loaded into your irb session" plugin
* zucker[http:/rubyzucker.info]   nice debug printing (q, o, c, .m, .d) + useful pseudo-constants (Info, OS, RubyVersion, RubyEngine)
* ap[https://github.com/michaeldv/awesome_print]      nice debug printing (ap) [also see wp]
* coderay[http://coderay.rubychan.de/]    some nice colorful displaying ;)
* boson[http://tagaholic.me/boson/]  commands repository (commands also work in the shell!)
* guessmethod[http://guessmethod.rubyforge.org/]    automatically corrects typos (method_missing hook) [not loaded by default]

=== Helper methods

See the source for a description. These methods are defined directly by irbtools. Each gem may add its own helper methods.

*General*: <tt>ls, cat, rq, rrq/rerequire, ld, session_history, reset!, clear, use_ruby/use, rubies, use_gemset/gemset, gemsets, dbg, Object#ri</tt>

*Clipboard*: <tt>copy, paste, copy_input, copy_output</tt>

*CodeRay*: <tt>colorize, ray</tt>

==== RVM

If you have RVM installed, you can switch your gemset or ruby with <tt>gemset</tt> and <tt>use</tt> (use <tt>gemsets</tt> and <tt>rubies</tt> to get a list). The gemset can be changed within the session, while changing ruby starts a new one. Please also note that you need to have installed irbtools for that ruby version. I recommend installing it in the <tt>global</tt> gemset.

== Welcome message

You can customize the welcome message with <tt>Irbtools.welcome_message=</tt>

== Todo

* Nicer ri command

=== Planned features for 0.9.0 (next main version)

* define flexibly, whether library should be loaded on start/on subsession or via autoload
* faster loading

== More Features

* See the irbtools-more[https://github.com/janlelis/irbtools-more] package or suggest some useful utilities/tweaks ;)

== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Jan Lelis, http://rbjl.net, released under the MIT license.

J-_-L