HowTo: Windows + RubyStack + Aptana RadRails + Ruby Debug

Thought I would make this a new topic. It collates information relating to getting a good development environment running on a windows box (for free):

After following these steps you should have an Aptana RadRails intstalltion, which RubyStack’s Ruby, Rails, ImageMagick and other libraries, and provides visual debugging.

1. Download and Install:
   • RubyStack – http://bitnami.org/stack/rubystack
   • Aptana Studio – http://www.aptana.com/studio/download
2. Configure:
   • Aptana
     • Open Aptana, run Help > Aptana Studio Start Page.
     • Under the central Languages division, find Ruby on Rails, click Install.
       • Check ‘Aptana RadRails’, but UNCHECK the ‘Aptana RadRails Integration’ descendant (this will cause a problem if you do not use MyLyn).
       • Install and Restart
     • Open Window > Preferences > Ruby > Installed Interpreters
       • Click Add RubyVM, enter {RubyStack root directory}/ruby in the RubyVM home directory’ field’
       • Check the RubyVM you just added as the default interpreter
     • Open Window > Preferences > Rails > Configuration
       • Enter the path to the RubyStack Rails, Rake, and Mongrel Rails executables, respectively:
         • {RubyStack root directory}/ruby/bin/rails
         • {RubyStack root directory}/ruby/bin/rake
         • {RubyStack root directory}/ruby/bin/mongrel_rails
     • Open Window > Preferences > Ruby > Debugger
       • Check ‘Use ruby-debug library’
   • Ruby:
     • Run {RubyStack root directory}/use_ruby.bat
       • Enter the command:
         • gem install -y ruby-debug-ide
3. Environment Variables (replace C:/RubyStack with your {RubyStack root directory}):
   • Open Control Panel > System Properties > Advanced
     • Click Environment Variables
       • Edit ‘PATH’ and prepend:
         • C:/RubyStack/sqlite;C:/RubyStack/subversion/bin;C:/RubyStack/imagemagick;
           C:/RubyStack/php;C:/RubyStack/mysql/bin;C:/RubyStack/ruby/bin;
       • Add the variable ‘MAGICK_CODER_MODULE_PATH’, with value:
         • C:/RubyStack/imagemagick/modules/coders

Then you are finished.

Now, when you run Aptana you should be able to add/start ruby servers in debug mode or otherwise. Additionally any features used in your application residing in RubyStack should work.

Note that this breaks the containment of RubyStack, and it would be easy to call the scripts/setenv.bat file from another batch file before opening Aptana to achieve the same effect without altering environment variables.