fuzzyness

ExpanDrive

6·May·08

I’ve been struggling with finding a way to work on files on a remote server, as if they were local. I use Textmate as my text editor and although I can control-click remote files in Transmit and open them up in Textmate, it takes a fair bit of trickery and patience to open up files in tabs, as if part of the same project, and be able to work on them properly — without dropping the connection and typically having to start the whole frustrating process again.

So it’s with great delight I’ve discovered this little gem: ExpanDrive.

Set up the details of your remote server, then ExpanDrive logs you in, mounting the remote server as a drive in the Finder to use as you would locally. Drag any number of files to Textmate, open them up in tabs, and (so far at least) it never drops the connection. Absolutely marvellous!

I’ll use this most often at the moment working with remote ExpressionEngine templates saved as text files on the server which I’ve previously been unable to do with any ease. I did try using Coda to do this but it drives me to distraction every time I trial it – I just don’t get Coda at all!

However, with all the dabbling I’ve been doing with Ruby on Rails recently I can see a time coming soon when I’ll be doing all my development locally in Subversion and deploying to a production server anyway. But for now, ExpanDrive looks mighty cool to me.

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