NetBeans IDE 7.3.1 is released, hurray, etc. Now let's look at using Ruby on Rails in NetBeans IDE 7.3.1.
Go here, to the NetBeans plugin for JRuby maintained by Tom Enebo and the JRuby community (since there really isn't anyone better in the world to be responsible for a tooling plugin than the community itself) and click the Download button:
http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/38549/ruby-and-rails
Now you have a ZIP file. Unzip it. Go to Tools | Plugins in NetBeans IDE 7.3.1. Select all the NBMs from the unzipped file. Make very sure to change the "Files of Type" filter to "All", so that you can include the JRuby JAR, which you must have, otherwise the NBMs will not be able to be installed. I.e., you can include the JAR, as shown below, which is in the ZIP file, but, again, make sure to change the filter from the default, so that not only NBM files are selectable.
When you click Install above, you'll see this dialog, just accept what it tells you:
Once the installation is complete, go to File | New Project and there you'll see the Depot Application, which is a nice sample to get you started:
Now you have a full-blown and very fast/smooth editor for your code (click to enlarge the image below):
You can configure a bunch of things in the Project Properties dialog, i.e., per project:
Also, there are IDE-wide configuration settings you can configure in Tools | Options:
And, aside from the sample shown above, there are various starting points for your own applications:
So dive in today, the water is good!