Linux Web Development in Linux

yep, local dev server is always a good idea imo
then when you've got stuff working there upload it to the real server

 

I guess my question is more how do you upload local files to the remote server.

I am not horribly fond of navigating to /var/www/htdocs/images/logos/locally, and to /var/users/o/oneseventeen/htdocs/images/logos/ and uploading the logo I just manipulated, then going to /var/www/htdocs/clients/info/company_a/ and then navigating remotely to /var/users/o/oneseventeen/clients/info/company_a/ to upload the new index.php that uses the new logo....

does that make sense?

I'm looking for a quick method of managing an FTP site, so all I have to do is navigate to the local file and tell it to upload itself in the proper location. (very simply by saying my local root is /var/www/ and my remote root is /var/users/o/oneseventeen/ and having it check the paths from there)

And if there is no linux app out there to do this, what do you reccommend I do instead? just map the ftp account to a folder and open up two windows each time I need to upload a file? (I'm fine with that, but I just want to be sure it's the best/quickest way before I waste all the time navigating folders twice for each file.)

 

whats wrong with /mnt/mywebsiteserver/www/ ?

you can mount ftp folders as unix resources.

 

well if you are using gnome/nautilus there are bookmarks which make it a bit less irritating

 

you can symlink it to like /home/www !

 

sound like you want something like CVS but does not keep multiple versions

did a search and found this http://www.siber.com/cvs-via-ftp/ which sound promising

 

ManStrike, that does look promising, I'll definitely be looking into it.

And just to clarify for everyone else, have you ever been working on 5 files in 5 different directories at once? If you work on everything locally, say in ~/www/ and then upload it to a remote folder... even if it is mounted in a place like ~/remotewww/ then you have to have 2 windows open, one open to ~/www/ and the other open to ~/remotewww/
Then, you have to navigate in both windows where you want the file to come from, and where you want it to go.

When working on 5 or 10 different files at once, this can be annoying, to say the least. I just want to work on a text file in something like gedit, scite, bluefish, etc. then save the local file, and hit a key combination like [ctrl]+ and have the file uploaded to the appropriate directory on the remote server.

But that's because I'm being lazy, I may just do it like normal so I force myself to pay attention to directory structure, or I may just try my hand at writing plugins for different text editors.

 

the way i do it is to have all the files open in textpad (they appear in a sidebar so dont have loads of windows and switching between files is easy) then have winscp open to the remote server and just drag and drop the whole directory when i've implemented and actually made work a new feature locally, its only a few k to reupload the files that havent been changed

 

yeah, I think I'm just going to have to devote one PC to all my web development (backing it up on a daily basis, of course)

As of now, I have at least 3 computers configured to modify my website, so I'm always having to redownload the files I want to work on, then uploading them individually so I don't mess up other files on the server.

Thanks for all the tips guys, I think I'm really getting into this whole linux thing. As soon as I get my kernel patched to actually work properly with my system (i.e. enabling DMA, fixing the pc clock, enabling the proper video drivers, etc.) I will be 100% linux powered on all my sites

 

you should only have 2 copies, one local (ie on the local network) and one remote, you can directly edit the local one from any machine on the network

 

What about Zend Studio IDE, its not free, but can be obtained But its well worth to money to pay out. They have a student discount too IIRC.

Joel

 

Yeah, and if I buy it this month I get $100 off PHP certification, so I might just do that...

Now the only downside is if I want to do some flash applications, but who knows, maybe wine and an older version of flash?

 

JK beat me to it. Was just coming to suggest Zend. It's the best, tbh, and has all the FTP integration.

 

Another vote for Zend Couldn't live without it.

 

Cool, glad to hear actual feedback from people who use it. I haven't heard much in the past from people who use it.

What version do you guys use? Is it worht the extra $200 to jump to Professional? Or just stick with standard? (this will be the primary tool I use for developing apps for my business.)

 

I've only got a Standard license at work, but have used a Pro one (my team leader's got one) and it's definitely worth considering. You get the SQL functions which are brilliant, especially if you work with more than one DBMS like we do. And if you use CVS, the Pro version is great. But, tbh, for $200, buy a copy of Navicat (for MySQL) and use Tortoise for your CVS (if on windows).

As for all the profiling stuff it gives you, well, it looks good but we've never used any of it.

 

HTML Kit

I got HTML Kit working on linux using wine, once. You could give that a try. HTML Kit has lots of user created plug-ins, you may be able to find one that does the PHP syntax thing and the file syncing stuff you are after.

I also use the firefox Quick Search. I created a quick search that uses the keyword 'php' to go to the location 'http://www.php.net/%s'. Then I just type "php mail" into the address bar to go to the http://www.php.net/mail.

 

I'm now enjoying my 33rd day of my 30 day free trial of Zend Studio - it's seems that it only checks the expiry date at startup

 

Get yourself Zend Studio 5 beta and it'll run as Pro edition until it's actually released (end of October I think). When you download it, create a (or open an existing) project and press Ctrl + Alt + G and Ctrl + Shift + G.

Oh, it's got code folding too (about time!), and nested code completion.

ie; $object->methodReturnsObject()->autoCompleteMethod();



Also, now, if you press F1 on a PHP funtion name, it doesn't spawn an external instance of ie, it opens within a tabbed browser in Zend. l33t.

 

Version 5 won't start whilst 4 is running - it just sets focus to v4

So I either close v4 and use v5 for 1 1/2 months or continue using v4 until I close it by mistake or it craches.