The auto_link method is a simple way to make links live without requiring people to use HTML. Its first argument is a block of text. By default, it will turn all URLs and email addresses in that text into live links. The link parameter defaults to :all, but also accepts :email_addresses and :urls as options if you just want one or the other. The href_options parameter lets you add attributes.

(If you want to get really fancy, you can supply a block of code that will be executed for every link that gets added, letting you control processing precisely.)

Used for those obscure times when you want to generate output inside of a <% %> ERb code block instead of the usual <%= %> block.

Creates an object that lets you alternate different values for each member of an array. This lets you do things like alternate formatting to reflect even and odd rows, or mark every 10th element.

Finds a given phrase in a given text and returns the phrase with surrounding context.

Finds a given phrase in a given text and marks all occurrences with <strong class="highlight" >.

When used with the BlueCloth plug-in (http://www.deveiate.org/projects/BlueCloth), lets you convert text containing Markdown codes (http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax) into HTML.

Lets you apply Rails’ inflector (the same code that manages singular and plural for ActiveRecord objects) to any text you’d like.

Starts a cycle (described earlier) over again.

Adds HTML line breaks and paragraph marks to plain text.

When used with the RedCloth plug-in (http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/redcloth/), lets you convert text containing Textilize codes (http://www.textism.com/tools/textile) into HTML.

Just like textilize, but with one fewer surrounding paragraph mark (<p>...</p>).

Cuts off the end of a string after a specified number of characters and adds a truncate string, usually ....

Wraps text to a specified line width, breaking on whitespace when possible.