I have been using dreamweaver for most of my coding. The one great feature of dreamweaver is it's auto-ftp abilities that synch a local folder. I got to use nusphere and can open a remote ftp site and open a file for editing. When I click the upload it puts the edited file up on the site. But it 'downloads' the file to a temp folder with a temp name. With Dreamweaver I set up a local folder so the files remotely get downloaded to the local folder and then opened. When I save it it saves it locally before uploading it remotely. I like this because I use my local computer as a test platform and this ensures that I have all the files the same in both spots when needed. It also is nice because I just hit save and it get uploaded without any more steps. I haven't been able to get an remote ftp folder to be synched or associated with a local folder the same way by using nusphere phped. Is it possible or am I just out of luck?

It's not only possible with PhpED but rather a recommended way.
Create project, set its root pointing to local directory that contains all the project files, assign Publishing account property (see project properties) and you'll be able to run Smart Sync, Smart download, Smart upload. See workspace window popup. PhpED supports SFTP, FTP, FTP/SSL, WEBDAV. WEBDAV/SSL for this

Hi,
I am having a problem with this feature on 4.5/4513. I have a file on the remote server that is newer than the file on my local machine. When I Smart Sync the older file is uploaded instead of the newer file being downloaded. As I recall it, this feature worked perfectly in previous builds...

(I have checked file stamps, server time zone etc..)

Hmm, if you can replicate this problem, please submit a report by email.

But first please check if time is properly synchrnonized. Just upload a file and check if its time corresponds to the local time on the computer or local file time in case of SFTP as it's only SFTP can update remote file time, in all other protocols file gets timestamp when it was updated.
If your server in different timezone or uses for example GMT and you're not in London , you' have to adjust time offset in the account settings.

OK, it appears that something is wrong with my system. I ran some more tests and found out that whenever I upload a file to my server the Modified Date and Time is reset to "now", so this is why PHPEd thinks that the file on my computer is newer. This happens with other FTP applications on my computer as well, so it is not a problem related to PHPEd, I don't think. Apologies.
Sincerely,
Joe

It's known limitation of FTP protocol.
I'd highly recommend you to use SFTP.
In this case file datetime stamp will always be updated properly.