[TxMt] Re: The "TextMate Must Have integrated ftp/sftp/ssh" discussion

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <43FE0396.8000600 at je-ju.net>,
 Jeroen van der Ham <jeroen at je-ju.net> 
 wrote:

> Eric O'Brien wrote:
> > What are folks doing that makes them want to see built-in ftp/sftp/ssh
> > support in TextMate?  One situation I can imagine is the desire/need to
> > open many arbitrary files that are located in many arbitrary locations
> > on the Internet.  I don't have a good picture of when anyone would be
> > needing to do that though.  Are people doing that?  For me, the files I
> > want to edit are on my computer.  Periodically they need to be uploaded
> > to the net, but my editing sessions don't begin from copies that were on
> > the net.
> 
> I have a FreeBSD server in the closet that I try to manage. There it is
> sometimes useful to edit files. I do most small edits with vim, but once
> in a while you end up with a large (config) file that needs some big
> overhaul or back and forth glancing and editting.
> Then it would be nice to have a quick way of editting that file in
> TextMate and saving it directly back to the server. Either because it is
> easier to put it back directly, or so that I can test some settings and
> go back to editting and saving quickly.
> 
> There have been some proposed scripts/commands that use ssh and keys to
> go back and forth to TM with temporary files, but I'd rather have it as
> built-in so that it is a bit more robust.

I suggest you try a good sftp client such as Fetch, Yummy FTP or 
Transmit. Connect to the server; click "Edit" on the file and viola! It 
shows up in TextMate, you edit it, and when you save it it is 
retransmitted. (You may have to tweak some settings; for example Yummy 
FTP offers several options for deciding when to save a file back to the 
server.)

It's easier than it may sound. I find it so convenient that I hardly 
edit anything locally on my unix boxes anymore.

Another option is to mount the unix volume remotely. Then you can open 
the file directly. We do that with samba; another option is nfs. The 
only trouble there is that MacOS X tends to clutter up the mounted 
directories with invisible files (which are harmless, but still...). 

(And regarding an earlier poster who is synchronizing multiple sets of 
files: good sftp clients can do synchronization. If you mount the remote 
volume then built-for-the-task synchronization programs such as 
Synchronize! Pro X will also work.)

-- Russell