Finally I've got tired of pressing 'spec spec/model/*' , so I decided to try autotest.

The idea of autotest is just running and informing you about test results without manual runs. It looks simple, you run 'autotest' from console and see results. It automatically triggers test when you edit the test file. You also can configure and add some visualization by editing .autotest file, which should be located in your rails root directory.

There are plenty of documentation on installation but I still got some issues.
Here are some usefull links on this topic:

• http://ph7spot.com/articles/getting_started_with_autotest

The nube documentation.

• http://pragmatig.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/autotest-rspec-notifications-for-ubuntu/

And the script for Ubuntu to see linux like flashing messages about test completion.

• http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2006/11/15/rspec-autotest-now-a-rails-plugin

Autotest plugin for rails


.autotest example for ubuntu

require 'autotest/redgreen'

module Autotest::Notify
 def self.notify title, msg, img, pri='low', time=3000
   `notify-send -i #{img} -u #{pri} -t #{time} '#{msg}'`
 end

 Autotest.add_hook :ran_command do |autotest|
   results = [autotest.results].flatten.join("\n")
   output = results.slice(/(\d+)\s+examples?,\s*(\d+)\s+failures?(,\s*(\d+)\s+pending)?/)
   folder = "~/Pictures/rails/"
   if output  =~ /[1-9]\d*\sfailures?/
     notify "FAIL:", "#{output}", folder+"rails_fail.png", 'critical', 10000
   elsif output  =~ /[1-9]\d*\spending?/
     notify "PENDING:", "#{output}", folder+"rails_pending.png", 'normal', 10000
   else
     notify "PASS:", "#{output}", folder+"rails_ok.png"
   end
 end
end