Moving from Coda to WebStorm - remote file editing? Follow

Hi there,

a) How can I open and edit remote files from a server with WebStorm?

WebStorm does not have such functionality -- it cannot edit files directly on (S)FTP.

1. WebStorm is an IDE (not just advanced text editor) and requires project to be defined.
2. Project files must be local (as IDE requires fast access to source files) so that IDE can index them and offer code completion, syntax checking and other stuff
3. You can setup IDE with empty local project; define Deployment entry; browse remote location (Remote Host toolwindow) and then download whatever files you want from there (FTP and alike) later
   
4. Once files are downloaded you can edit them (you cannot edit directly on remote location without downloading)
5. Once you finished editing you can deploy you changes back  to remote location manually or set up IDE to automatically upload any changed files.

Corresponding tickets (vote/watch them to get notified on progress):

• http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-1398
• http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-1816

b) Or how do I set up an easy sync between local and remote files on the server?

1. Settings (Preferences on Mac) | Deployment -- make sure that deployment entry you are using is marked as Default for this project
2. Settings (Preferences on Mac) | Deployment | Options | Upload changed files automatically to the default server
3. Other settings on that page
   

There is another way of doing this (what I do). If you have Transmit (from Panic, the same company that published Coda) you could mount the drive through FTP. That mounted drive is treated by your Mac like any other drive. PHPStorm/WebStorm would not know it was FTP. It sees it a drive.

Edit your files and in the background Transmit, uploads the files. It will even save the old files for you if you want.

If you don't have Transmit: http://panic.com/transmit/