Very often we work on projects that are hosted on a remote server. There are multiple ways to work on the remote files:

1. ssh into the remote machine and use an editor like vi or emacs to edit the files

2. Develop on your local machine and FTP every change

The second choice is preferable if you want to use an IDE or if the conenction to the server is slow.

However, there is a 3rd approach, that combines the above two. If you are using Eclipse or NetBeans as your editor, then you can connect your editor to the remote server over FTP. I will only cover Eclipse since that is what I use.

1. Download and Install Eclipse PDT from http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project.php?id=tools.pdt

2. Go to Help->Install New Software...

3. Chose 'All Available Sites' and serach for 'Remote System' and then select the Remote server Explorer plugins as shown in the attached screenshot.

4. This will install the remote server explorer or RSE plugin.

5. There are other ways to insall the plugin, but this is the only method that really worked for me.

6. Next opn the 'Remote Server Perspective' ineclipse (I am assuming basic Eclipse knowldge) and add the remote server location, including your username and password. Use the FTP option.

Now, under the Remote Systems tab in the Eclipse, you can browse to the directory of your Drupal installation and start editing your files. Everytime you save, you are saving on the remote server. Just make sure you are not overwriting changes from other developers and that you use SVN or CVS as a code repository.

There is a Drupal plugin for Eclipse and you can get the instructions from here: