Sublime color syntax for Ruby variables vs keywords

Question

Is there a way for Sublime Text 2 to display different colors for Ruby "variables" vs "keywords"? The image below is an example of Ruby code with the default Monokai color scheme. I was hoping I could having the variables (list, x) be a different color than the keywords (each, print).

Currently, they're all tied to <key>foreground</key> . I did try changing the variable color, but that only changed for the |x| .

Answer 1

No, there is not a way to do this with the default Ruby syntax that ships with Sublime. list , each , print , and x are all scoped as source.ruby , meaning they don't have a specific scope that can be targeted by a color scheme. On the other hand, end is scoped keyword.control.ruby , and do is keyword.control.start-block.ruby (in addition to the base source.ruby scope that applies to all elements), so if you have a rule in your color scheme for keyword or keyword.control , they can be colored differently. |x| is punctuation.separator.variable.ruby for the pipes | , and variable.other.block.ruby for x , so those can be adjusted per your preferences.

Essentially, an item can only be colored if it has a distinct scope, and your color scheme contains a rule for that scope (or a more generalized version of it, but not a more specific version of it). Ruby is especially challenging as compared to Python, for example, as while Python methods always have parentheses at the end ( string_var.replace() , for example) and regexes can be written to highlight anything between the dot . and the parens as a function call, Ruby does not follow this paradigm, so the syntax highlighting definition (found in the various .tmLanguage files) cannot distinguish between a method call and a simple attribute, and so cannot highlight them differentially. This is why list.each in your program is only source.ruby , and each is not highlighted as a function.