[TxMt] Calling 'mate' remotely

[William Uther]

Hi,
   Thanks for the previous help.  I'm a little chagrined that they  
seemed obvious questions.  I had looked for answers... honest. :)

Anyway, I've got another use case that I could use some help with.  I  
often ssh into another unix box, and occasionally need to edit a file  
while I'm there.  With bbedit, I had a script that would ssh back  
into my mac and then open the remote file on the unix box.  I'm  
trying to replicate that with TextMate.  The closest I've found in  
the mailing list is this:

http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2006-February/008384.html

My version is as follows.  On the remote box I have a script called  
'mate':

-----
#! /bin/sh

# Make sure we have the full path to the file
if echo $1 | egrep ^/ - > /dev/null ; then
     path=$1 ;
else
     path=`pwd`/$1 ;
fi

HOST=`hostname`

echo Opening $path on ${SSH_CLIENT%% *}

ssh willu@${SSH_CLIENT%% *} remoteOpen ${USER} ${HOST} "$path"
-----

On my Mac I have this script called 'remoteOpen':

-----
#!/bin/sh

remUser=$1
remHost=$2
remPath=$3

remBase=`basename $remPath`
remDir=`dirname $remPath`

tempDir=`mktemp -d` || exit 1

localfile="${tempDir}/scp:${remHost}:${remBase}"
localBackup="${tempDir}/backup"

remLoc="${remUser}@${remHost}:${remPath}"

echo "${remLoc}" > ${tempDir}/remLoc

scp -Bpq "${remLoc}" "${localfile}" && cp "${localfile}" $ 
{localBackup} && osasc
ript -e "tell app \"Terminal\" to do shell script \"mate -w $ 
{localfile}\""

if ! cmp -s "${localfile}" ${localBackup} ; then
         scp -Bpq "${localfile}" "${remLoc}"
fi

rm -rf ${tempDir}
-----

I then have the following command for use within TextMate (instead of  
the normal 'save'):

Save the current file then:
-----
if [[ ${TM_FILEPATH} == */scp:* ]] ; then
	# this is an scp file
	# it has been saved by the time we get here
	# now just extract its remote name and scp it back
	localDir=`dirname $TM_FILEPATH`
	remLoc=`cat ${localDir}/remLoc`
	scp -Bpq "$TM_FILEPATH" "${remLoc}" && cp "$TM_FILEPATH" "$ 
{localDir}/backup"
fi
-----

This setup saves a backup of the remote version locally.  If the  
local copy gets saved with the special command while you're editing,  
and the data is scp'd back to the other host, then the backup is  
updated.  Otherwise, the difference is detected and the data is scp'd  
back to the remote box when the window is closed.

Current issues:

   i) Most importantly, the 'mate' command doesn't work from a remote  
shell.  This leads to the whole osascript workaround.  Unfortunately,  
while Terminal is running a script it just queues up all the input to  
its other windows and waits for the script to end.  This makes the  
current setup significantly less useful than the same setup using  
bbedit (where the 'bbedit' command does work from a remote terminal).

   ii) It would be nice if there was a way to tell textmate 'run this  
script when you write to that file'.  Basically, make the 'mate'  
command have an equivalent to the ODB Editor Suite of Apple Events.   
I imagine some extra options like this:

   --title WindowTitle		Start editing the new file with this window  
title instead of the file name as window title
   --onsave scriptPath		When the file is saved, this script is run  
with the path to the file as an argument
   --onclose scriptPath		When the file is closed (or Save As... is  
used to detach from the original file), this script is run with the  
path of the file as an argument

and perhaps a final option:

   --on-reopen scriptPath Data	This is a command line option that  
takes two arguments.  If this file re-opened from the 'Open Recent >'  
menu then the script 'scriptPath' is run with 'Data' as an argument  
to get the path of the file to open.

   This set of options would allow third parties to implement the  
much-requested 'sftp' feature, as well as any other file access  
method they wanted to.

Cheers,

Will         :-}

P.S.  I know - just use transmit or Cyberduck.  The problem is that  
they require me to connect from the mac.  I could modify my  
'remoteOpen' script to use them instead of scp, and that would solve  
the 'detecting save' problem (point ii), but it wouldn't solve the  
worst problem, point i.