Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?
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I've been using the Codeanywhere app on Android for a while, and started using the web-based version on my Windows computer. For me, it's extremely convenient, especially the Android app.
I can edit my website files, or any file on the server via SSH connection, in a syntax highlighting text editor. No need to log in, as the App is automatically after you set it up to connect with a private key and add the private key password if you password it. Even an option to use the SSH Terminal in the app and via web-based.
I really like it a lot, and am wondering if anybody knows of a similar but installable Windows app that pretty much does the same thing?
I just feel it's a little inconvenient to open up PuTTY, connect to the server, 'cd' to where I want to go, open up the files in vi or nano, edit, etc, etc, etc. Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
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Blah, as soon as I posted this I thought of VS Code. I'm going to see if there are plugins/addons that can do the same thing and report back.
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What protocol is being used on the back end?
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@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
What protocol is being used on the back end?
I'm not sure what you mean. Between which two points?
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@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
What protocol is being used on the back end?
I'm not sure what you mean. Between which two points?
Between the app and the storage.
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@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
What protocol is being used on the back end?
I'm not sure what you mean. Between which two points?
Between the app and the storage.
SSH
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@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@scottalanmiller said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
What protocol is being used on the back end?
I'm not sure what you mean. Between which two points?
Between the app and the storage.
SSH
Oh, yeah, anything will do that. VS Code, Atom, etc.
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Is it just git over SSH?
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@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
But at what cost? I would not trust them to store my credentials and have a direct connection between their stuff and mine. This seems really insecure.
I just feel it's a little inconvenient to open up PuTTY, connect to the server, 'cd' to where I want to go, open up the files in vi or nano, edit, etc, etc, etc.
It is, which is why automation is what you should be striving for. Directly editing files on systems should be as minimal as possible, unless it's a dev system that you're learning something on.
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@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
But at what cost? I would not trust them to store my credentials and have a direct connection between their stuff and mine. This seems really insecure.
I would hope the storage is completely in the local app on his device, and not something stored back to Codeanywhere's servers.
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@dashrender said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
But at what cost? I would not trust them to store my credentials and have a direct connection between their stuff and mine. This seems really insecure.
I would hope the storage is completely in the local app on his device, and not something stored back to Codeanywhere's servers.
Its not. If you're not on a phone or tablet it's all through a web browser. And those settings replicate to the devices so I have to assume that's all stored on their end.
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Would something like Codiad be what you are looking for?
Edit: Whoops... Didn't remember that you wanted a Windows App...
Edit 2: Codiad can only access files local to the server you install it on.
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@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@dashrender said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
But at what cost? I would not trust them to store my credentials and have a direct connection between their stuff and mine. This seems really insecure.
I would hope the storage is completely in the local app on his device, and not something stored back to Codeanywhere's servers.
Its not. If you're not on a phone or tablet it's all through a web browser. And those settings replicate to the devices so I have to assume that's all stored on their end.
OK, yep.. not a fan of that solution.
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WinSCP is fairly standard.
Enter all the sites, storing credentials and keys as you see fit. Then configure whatever you like as the text editor of choice. Notepad++, Sublime, VSC, et al. You can make it so that double-clicking any file goes strait to your editor of choice. Or create multiple editors that handle different file types.
A nice thing about WinSCP is that it's scriptable and has a command line executable for using however needed. I use it, for example, to automatically connect to a server and download backups to my local machine as a scheduled task in Windows.
Another handy feature is that you can save any given login as a Windows shortcut icon so simply double-click the icon and it opens up that connection. I use this by saving a shortcut in each project folder for different sites I work on. So I open my working folder and can double-click strait into the files.
Let's see, what else? You can tell it to synchronize local and remote folders to compare differences and sync up. You can tell it to keep a remote folder up to date so that every save of a local file will automatically upload to remote. You can open multiple sessions to different connections at the same time and even copy files between different sessions on completely different connections (tabbed interface). It can store multiple open sessions as a single state so that you can with a click open a WinSCP session that automatically opens multiple connections at the same time, such as if you commonly work on multiple servers at once.
If you connect with SSH, you can even bring up and run terminal commands.All that said, it's a bit more powerful than typical tools like FileZilla and CyberDuck, but still has a few quirks. It's pretty much a standard though.
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@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
Codeanywhere makes it way more convenient.
But at what cost? I would not trust them to store my credentials and have a direct connection between their stuff and mine. This seems really insecure.
Meh, I'm sure their server is more secure than my home computer and my cell phone.
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@stacksofplates said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
I just feel it's a little inconvenient to open up PuTTY, connect to the server, 'cd' to where I want to go, open up the files in vi or nano, edit, etc, etc, etc.
It is, which is why automation is what you should be striving for. Directly editing files on systems should be as minimal as possible, unless it's a dev system that you're learning something on.
How do you automate me wanting to make a change to a page on my personal website?
I would prefer to edit directly on my web server. It's all just HTML, and it does change history. So if I f up, I can go back to the last edit. -
@guyinpv said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
WinSCP is fairly standard.
Enter all the sites, storing credentials and keys as you see fit. Then configure whatever you like as the text editor of choice. Notepad++, Sublime, VSC, et al. You can make it so that double-clicking any file goes strait to your editor of choice. Or create multiple editors that handle different file types.
A nice thing about WinSCP is that it's scriptable and has a command line executable for using however needed. I use it, for example, to automatically connect to a server and download backups to my local machine as a scheduled task in Windows.
Another handy feature is that you can save any given login as a Windows shortcut icon so simply double-click the icon and it opens up that connection. I use this by saving a shortcut in each project folder for different sites I work on. So I open my working folder and can double-click strait into the files.
Let's see, what else? You can tell it to synchronize local and remote folders to compare differences and sync up. You can tell it to keep a remote folder up to date so that every save of a local file will automatically upload to remote. You can open multiple sessions to different connections at the same time and even copy files between different sessions on completely different connections (tabbed interface). It can store multiple open sessions as a single state so that you can with a click open a WinSCP session that automatically opens multiple connections at the same time, such as if you commonly work on multiple servers at once.
If you connect with SSH, you can even bring up and run terminal commands.All that said, it's a bit more powerful than typical tools like FileZilla and CyberDuck, but still has a few quirks. It's pretty much a standard though.
Using WinSCP the way you described... am I able to open/edit/save directly from the server without downloading a copy first, editing, saving, then uploading? (that's what I'm trying to avoid, and why codeanywhere is nice)
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@tim_g
Technically no. If you click to edit a file, it will download a temp copy since you would be editing it with a local text editor.
As soon as you close WinSCP these temp copies are destroyed. In fact if you just close the text editor the temp copy is destroyed. So it only downloads the specific file you want while it is in use, unless you do the whole synchronize thing.The only way to edit the file "directly" on the server is connect with SSH and use the terminal. Or if you have something like cPanel, use the built-in file explorer and edit the files with the built-in text editor.
Or use a cloud based IDE such as https://c9.io/ which can connect over SSH to your own server.
Regarding editing HTML files or Wordpress template files, these are tiny files, so the fact that it has to download a temp copy while you edit isn't a big deal.
A last option is to host your own IDE connected to your project, something like this: http://codiad.com/
It will provide a web-based IDE connected directly to your files on the server. -
@tim_g
Reading your question again, maybe yes. You don't have to manually do downloading and uploading yourself.
In fact you can configure WinSCP to automatically upload on save so every time you save the file, it just uploads immediately.This also applies to the feature for keeping a remote directory up to date. It can "watch" an entire local folder and will automatically upload any saved changes in any file.
I combine this feature with a feature in Visual Studio Code to automatically save my file on loss of focus. So what this means is, when I open a file in WinSCP and VSC, I can make edits and simply click over to my browser. In the meantime, VSC looses focus and auto-saves my file, and then WinSCP auto-uploads it. So by the time I click over to the browser, 1 or 2 seconds later I can refresh to see changes.
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@guyinpv said in Installable Windows App like Codeanywhere?:
@tim_g
Reading your question again, maybe yes. You don't have to manually do downloading and uploading yourself.
In fact you can configure WinSCP to automatically upload on save so every time you save the file, it just uploads immediately.This also applies to the feature for keeping a remote directory up to date. It can "watch" an entire local folder and will automatically upload any saved changes in any file.
I combine this feature with a feature in Visual Studio Code to automatically save my file on loss of focus. So what this means is, when I open a file in WinSCP and VSC, I can make edits and simply click over to my browser. In the meantime, VSC looses focus and auto-saves my file, and then WinSCP auto-uploads it. So by the time I click over to the browser, 1 or 2 seconds later I can refresh to see changes.
This is what I'm looking for. If it's all automatic, then I'm happy. Temp copies are fine as you described.
I tried setting it up in VSC, but it wasn't working. I ran out of time at home trying to set it up so I gave up and haven't yet had time to try again.
Could you guide me through getting it set up in VSC?
I tried doing it via SFTP, becuase those are the only addins I could find that would do it. Perhaps WinSCP and Notepad++ is the way to go.
I'm going to give Atom a try also, to see what I can do in there.
In the end, what I'd like is this:
- Open up program.
- See a live server tree on the left.
- Clicking on a file from the tree on the left, opens it on the right side (like in Codeanywhere or VSC), or opens it in text editor like Notepad++.
- Saving the file automatically uploads and overwrites file on server.
This needs to be done via SSH and needs to work with PuTTY or Openssh key files.
