Rails uses a concept called details to find a template using an Action View Resolver (actionpack-3.2.14/lib/action_view/template/resolver.rb). Version Cake registers an additional detail (called versions) to add more granularity when locating a template. The resolver builds a query from the details which is used to search the directory for the templates.
resolver = ActionView::OptimizedFileSystemResolver.new(Rails.root.join("app/views"))
template_name = "tester/index"
details = {:locale => [:en], :formats => [:html], :handlers => [:erb, :builder, :coffee, :jbuilder], :versions => [:v1]}
# without RABL
query = resolver.build_query(template_name, details)
=> ".../app/views/tester/index{.en,}{.v1,}{.html,}{.erb,.builder,.coffee,.jbuilder,}"
Dir[query]
=> [".../app/views/tester/index.html.erb"]
# with RABL
details[:handlers] << :rabl
query = resolver.build_query(template_name, details)
=> ".../app/views/tester/index{.en,}{.v1,}{.html,}{.erb,.builder,.coffee,.jbuilder,.rabl,}"
Dir[query]
=> [".../app/views/tester/index.v1.rabl", ".../app/views/tester/index.html.erb"]Because of the additional version detail, the resolver believes the rabl template is a really good match, especially because of the version being ahead of the format.
I don't have a good solution yet, but a workaround could be to name the index.html.erb file to index.v1.html.erb so it is a better match than the RABL template.