Did you know that Control-K automatically completes any previously typed strings from within the same editor? Similarly, Control-L completes previously typed strings found after the insertion point. Press either shortcut repeatedly to cycle through all possible completions.

Use shortcuts to speed up your work: Typing a colon and then hiting the tabkey inserts a hash entry of the form :key => "value". Pressing # inside a double quoted string will insert #{} with the caret in the middle. See the lost of all Ruby keyboard shortcuts in NetBeans IDE.

Did you know that you can open files that are not part of a project in the Favorites window? Select Windows > Favorites for a customizable file browser. You can also choose Navigate > Go to File or Go to Type from the menu to search for files and resources in your projects.