ERb file displaying as HTML file in the browser

Question

I'm getting back into rails after a hiatus, and ERB is not rendering as expected. I opened a view from a brand-new project, and one from an old project in both chrome and firefox. Same problem in all four permutations.

Here's _form.html.erb

<%= form_for(@cat) do |f| %>
  <% if @cat.errors.any? %>
    <div id="error_explanation">
      <h2><%= pluralize(@cat.errors.count, "error") %> prohibited this cat from being saved:</h2>

      <ul>
      <% @cat.errors.full_messages.each do |message| %>
        <li><%= message %></li>
      <% end %>
      </ul>
    </div>
  <% end %>

  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :birth_date %><br>
    <%= f.date_select :birth_date %>
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :color %><br>
    <%= f.text_field :color %>
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :name %><br>
    <%= f.text_field :name %>
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :sex %><br>
    <%= f.text_field :sex %>
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    <%= f.label :description %><br>
    <%= f.text_area :description %>
  </div>
  <div class="actions">
    <%= f.submit %>
  </div>
<% end %>

And here's new.html.erb

<h1>New Cat</h1>

<%= render 'form' %>

<%= link_to 'Back', cats_path %>

And here's what the browser renders:

I'm running rails 4.2.1 and ruby 2.2.1, and I'm brand new to both versions.

Answer 1

Turns out, I was opening the ERb files in the browser in the manner I'd grown accustomed to doing for HTML files (Command + O -> choose file). No wonder it was being read as HTML!

For posterity: you must navigate to your app directory in the terminal, start a rails server with "rails s", and navigate to your views from localhost:3000.

Answer 2

I think you might have a lingering new.html in your views directory.