Nate Kane has created a overview and search page showing sample Ruby code in many different color schemes. Some of the color schemes are provided with Vim. For example, the following command should show the elflord scheme: :colorscheme elflord Note that if you are using Vim over SSH or in certain color-limited terminals you may need to tell Vim to use 256 color mode in order to have the color schemes display with greater accuracy by using the command :set t_Co=256 .