conflict with Ultisnips

[regedarek]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9556230/how-to-set-manualy-color-of-params-and-redirect-to-in-vim#comment12127893_9556230

My filetype is ruby.rails and when i cheange it to set filetype=ruby syntax works.
But then my ultisnips dont recognize rails snippets, how to compare this two things??

[tpope]

The problem is that every snippets plugin insists that file types are the only valid grouping for snippets. This leads to the bizarre creation of a "rails" pseudo-filetype. See #134 for my stance on that.

That being said, if someone wants to go to the trouble of working around it in rails.vim, I won't object. Basically, you need to change conditionals like

if &filetype == 'ruby'

to be like

if &filetype =~# '^ruby\>'

Make sure you get all of them though. Start with a search for \<ruby\>.

[regedarek]

Thx Tim :)

[SirVer]

Tim, I am the author of UltiSnips. I am interested in a better way to group snippets beside filetypes to avoid this clutch. Do you have a suggestion? One could add a Vim Variable (a dictionary maybe) that rails.vim could set or modify and that ultisnips would understand - but this would be a specific hack for UltiSnips. Do you have a better suggestion?

[tpope]

@SirVer I feel like the ideal solution is just a command that defines a snippet for the current buffer. Much like how abbreviations work. If you wanted to define an abbreviation for all Ruby files, you'd do

autocmd FileType ruby abbrev <buffer> AR ActiveRecord

Doing it in in Rails projects, then, is a simple switch to a rails.vim autocommand:

autocmd User Rails abbrev <buffer> AR ActiveRecord

I guess the problem here is that snippets tend to be multiple lines, and thus much harder to adapt to a Vim command syntax. Given this constraint, I feel like the best compromise solution is instead some sort of command to load a bundle of snippets into the current buffer independent of file type. That would enable a simple decoupling.

autocmd User Rails UltiSnipsLoad rails

Hell, I'd have no objection to dispatching that from rails.vim automatically.

Bonus orthogonal idea: ability to load from an arbitrary path. This would enable project specific snippets. For example:

autocmd User Fugitive UltiSnipsLoad `=fugitive#repo().tree('.project.snippets')`

[SirVer]

Right, I added a bug report for this idea in the ultisnips bug tracker [1]. I think I prefer a buffer local variable, similar to a vim option - so it will be possible to also associate a priority order with the filetypes. Note that project specific snippets are already supported, but a naming convention must be followed [2]. Thanks for your ideas Tim! I will let you know when I have implemented this in UltiSnips.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ultisnips/+bug/950033
[2] https://answers.launchpad.net/ultisnips/+question/187062

[tpope]

Sounds good. I hope you'll consider a wrapper command though. If I do

if &filetype =~# '^ruby\>'
  let b:UtilSnips_Filetypes = ['ruby', 'rails']
endif

I'll be potentially clobbering the user's preferences, and if I do

if &filetype =~# '^ruby\>' && exists('b:UltiSnips_Filtetypes')
  let b:UtilSnips_Filetypes += ['rails']
endif

I'll be potentially duplicating 'rails' in b:UtilSnips_Filetypes, particularly on reloads.

[SirVer]

I will keep this in mind.

[SirVer]

Tim, I just pushed this fix. There is now a new command defined in UltiSnips. I think vim-rails should call it like this

:UltiSnipsAddFiletypes rails.ruby

for each rails buffer. It will make sure that rails and ruby snippets are considered when expanding and rails snippets will have a higher priority (read: can overwrite) ruby snippets. Also, UltiSnipsEdit will open rails.snippets by default for editing. Would you mind adding this to rails.vim?

[tpope]

I can give it a go. Surely I can just do :UtilsSnipsAddFiletypes rails in ruby files, right?

Calling them Filetypes still feels wrong, but it's a dissonance I'm willing to tolerate. :)

[SirVer]

I can give it a go. Surely I can just do :UtilsSnipsAddFiletypes rails in ruby files, right?
Yep. Though it should not be needed as the UltiSnips also reacts on the
FileType autocommand. But it does no harm at all

[tpope]

Done and done.

[SirVer]

Cool, thanks Tim!