Netbeans IDE has been making lots of progress and it’s currently top of the list in building any any kind of desktop/web applications that you can imagine, Java, C/C++, PHP, Python, Ruby, HTMl, CSS, Javascript etc (minus .NET though). However, there’s strangely one deadly missing feature within the Netbeans IDE: you can’t browse, edit and upload files located remotely from your computer.
I’m sure this causes lots of frustration. It’s such a basic need and the fact that Netbeans is such a great IDE. ALL IDE such as Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, Eclipse, Zend Studio, Komodo and PHPEd has this built-in.
It was announced that this feature will be supported in Netbeans 6.7 (PHP Application from Remote Server) and it sure looks pretty and usable. Unfortunately, I’m now using Netbeans 6.7.1 and the option “php app from remote server” can hardly be found anywhere.
But the good news is that this feature will be coming back in 6.8, or so it may seem as mentioned in “NetBeans 6.8 New and Noteworthy“. For PHP developers, notable new features includes:
– PHP 5.3 support including(syntax highlighting, code completion, code folding, navigator)
– Symfony Framework support
– PHPUnit improvements
– FTP/SFTP improvements
– Ignored Folders in PHP projects
– PHP Application from Remote Server
– PHP syntax coloring in YAML files
Plus you can also check how’s it progressing under “Remote file transfer protocol support” in netbeans’ PHPDevelopmentPlan.
On top of that, add CakePHP framework support into Netbeans and I’ll call it my perfect-one-and-only PHP IDE of all time.
*I’ve read somewhere that the feature can be already found in the nightly builds. Give the nightly builds a try if you can’t wait for the final stable 6.8 version.
Update 091212: The new Netbeans 6.8 IDE has already been released and it’s now working great in editing/updating remote files.
Comments welcomed.
Chris says
I 100% agree with your comments. This has to be the only PHP IDE that doesn’t include a remote file manager (ftp client).
Seems a little odd, but if that’s its only fault, I won’t complain too much.
David says
Chris, try the just released netbeans 6.8, there’s now a fully functional remote file manager (ftp client) 🙂
Chris says
David,
I understand that there is a way to upload and download files to a remote machine. I couldn’t find a way to navigate and edit files on the remote machine via Netbeans 6.8. I possibly could have missed it.
I understand that I can download a file to netbeans, edit it, and upload it. However, this leaves the possibility for human error to forget to download the server version, but overwriting it with my local copy.
David says
Chris, I was wrong about having a ftp client in netbeans 6.8. Like you’ve mentioned, I’m also looking for a way to browse files (as in pure ftp style, no need to add remote php project) on a remote host.
MIhai says
It’s still not working as it should, if any of you have worked with notepad++ you know what I mean! Why do you need to download the entire folder, that’s not reliable? Let’s see what happens in the next version.
David says
MIhai, I totally agree with you. Netbeans 6.8 will still need developers to define a remote (duh!) project and download the entire folder before you can even start doing something in it.
Dreamweaver, Notepad++, PSPad, Filezilla, CoreFTP, SmartFTP plus a dozen of other programs I’ve worked with will just let me browse files on a remote host and edit it, as easy as that. I’m surprise Netbeans can’t do that.
Perhaps the argument from Netbeans will be “but those programs can’t maintain projects and do remote sync at the same time”, which I think is quite true as well. Comments?
Radu says
well, netbeans 6.9.1 allows you to make a remote php project and it allows you to download everything from the server first :D. I also tried Zend to do this, and it actually crashed. I had to reinstall Zend studio, that’s what I am saying.
Rob Ganly says
when i first started using netbeans 6.8 i thought it seemed a bit much having to download a copy of the remote files when setting up a remote project (as opposed to being able to edit directly on the remote server like i was used to).
however it works well and is pretty fast too. i guess one bonus is that should you not have a decent backup system in place you’ll have a copy of the code on your local machine should the remote server die.
that said however i could imagine it being a bit of a pain if the remote application was very large… BUT netbeans actually rocks when you look at the functionality it offers and the fact that it is free, when something like zend studio is €299.00!
Joaquim Homrighausen says
I’ve been using Netbeans for quite some time, along with Zend Studio, Eclipse PDT, and Aptana. They’re all good in their own right, but one issue that all of these environments have serious problems with is 1) remote file editing, and 2) remote repositories. Some work better than others, but they all have shortcomings in these two areas (IMHO).
With remote editing, the biggest issue is that they don’t detect external changes easily, which prevents a simple multi-work-location-setup. Netbeans, for example, thinks that it owns the “project”, so if a file is added outside of it, it won’t know about it. If you modify a file on the server from another location, it won’t know about it. Various versions of Eclipse PDT (on which Zend Studio and Aptana are both based) also have issues with this.
It’s a shame that these solutions come so close, and stumble on the doorstep, because they’re all great tools.
As for version control/repository issues, this isn’t necessarily a fault of the IDE:s, but they do have issues with working with repositories that are stored on the remote server, unless you set-up remote version control (on the server) as well. I wrote a post about this issue here: http://www.joho.se/index.php?/archives/376-When-version-control-systems-fail-miserably.html
Again, great tools, and for Netbeans, Eclipse PDT, and Aptana, you can hardly complain about the price 🙂
David says
have you tried using dropbox as your remote version control? i’m currently using it as an svn repo in a single developer environment and that seems to be working fine for myself.
Joaquim Homrighausen says
I haven’t tried using dropbox as my remote VC, but that would still require me to pull commits out of there to the “run” environment. And it still doesn’t address the issue of Netbeans thinking the LOCAL COPY of the file(s) it stores is the master file..
.. but you mean I should then commit a file every time I’ve made changes to it and then check it out when I move to another computer, since that’s how Netbeans works together with VC.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Radu says
I use netbeans from 3 different computers working on the sa project ( home work and laptop) which is a remote project actually. My setup uses dropbox. So i created the project in a dropbox folder. So in there will always be the latest version of the project and this will be shared by all my computers :). Its pretty cool cose dropbox is like invisible, it doesn’t require me to commit files or stuff like that. And i could work from any computer actually, as long as i have netbeans and an internet connection, i can install dropbox. You have to add a remote ftp connection setu. It is possible that the remote connection in the new netbeans must have the same name as the original for this to work.
David says
I love dropbox too! I even have my svn repo in it 🙂
Joaquim Homrighausen says
See my comments above on this. Without committing every change, Netbeans on Computer 1 will still think it has the latest master version of a given file in its LOCAL COPY, and when I move to Computer 2, Netbeans on it will also think it’s the master ..
So I guess you’re telling me that you use Dropbox, set-up a connection from your computer(s) with Dropbox, and then tell all your Netbeans installations that it should use that folder/connection as the project folder? So Netbeans thinks this is a LOCAL PROJECT? How do you get the file(s) into your production or testing environment?
Interestingly enough, Komodo seems to handle this part just fine (and PLEASE, let’s NOT start a Netbeans vs Komod vs Eclipse thread here :-)).
Radu says
Yes, all netbeans think its a local remote project. When i save a file it is uploaded by netbeans automaticaly on the remote server(which is the testing environment) and dropbox automatically uploads it so it will get synced with all of my computers. There is no need for commiting or updating, it is all done automatically. I love this setup cose dropbox is completely transparent.