I took a look to see if anyone else had requested this feature, but the closest I saw was a request to be able to "Delete Remote"...so that when you right click to delete a file, you can select "Delete Local", "Delete Remote", or "Delete Both". While that feature would take care of PART of the problem, it is still much less usable than if we could have multiple "views" of a project...e.g. "Local View" and "Remote View"...so that you can toggle which view you are looking at per-project...this would enable you to quickly see what's on the server in case there are test files that need to be deleted, etc., without having to use the Explorer view or an external application.

Basically, I'm trying to get completely away from Dreamweaver since it's only minimally useful for programming--only showing you code-insight for built in functions, etc.. However, Dreamweaver's handling of multiple "views" (Local/Remote/Testing) for each project is still heads above all other applications that I've used. I've tested about 7 IDEs in the last month, and phpEd is definitely the best in that it's the only one that I've found that handles working with Local and Remote versions that works in a way that is similar enough to DW to be usable for my purposes and keeps me from having to use DW quite as much as I would have to for something like Zend Studio. So, I went ahead and purchased phpEd, but I definitely think that there is room to grow.

The company I work for has a single server for all of our websites, and only a couple of websites hosted on other servers. So, I am able to manage almost all of our websites with a single SFTP server login. If I switch to Explorer view, I have to wade through many levels of folders just to get to the project folder to delete a file...so I end up using DW if I need to look at the Remote Server for anything. Ideally, I would like to see the day where I can just toss DW out the window and never worry about it again...and getting something similar to DW's multiple "Views" would be the biggest step in that direction for me.

Thanks,

Kevin

Not sure if it's helpful in your case, but you may want to create many SFTP accounts, each with its own root directory corresponding to your web root direcotories. See Root directory in the account settings.

Thanks for the other suggestions.

Yes, I "could" create a different server for each account, but I wouldn't...I'd continue using DW before I'd congest the explorer view with that many websites...because then instead of having to wade through 100 sub-folders, I'd have to wade through 100 primary folders to get to the website that I want...so the amount of time it would save me would be null...and then I'd have to choose between 100 server connections every time I make a project, which would be worse.

The fact that I only have to make one server connection for each server I connect to and then just change folders per-project was one of the selling points for me in buying phpED...I'm not about to get rid of one of the selling points.

The point of the suggestion is not that I don't have alternatives...it's actually fairly easy for me to switch to DW's remote view and remove a file. The point is to make phpED better so that I don't need alternatives...I still think phpED is a great application, I just think some fine-tunning in this area could help a lot.

I've done a little more thinking about it, for anyone who wants to read a lengthy explanation

Clearly, the connection to the server is already able to be made...because I can upload and sync...so the connection is made and you're able to read the file list obviously because the explorer view can do it...so all the functionality is there...the only problem we have is with the "workspace", which allows multiple projects that may have differing connections...so we can't make a local/remote view for a workspace...it needs to be at the project level. So, I can see that it would require a restructuring of how the workspace system works...you couldn't use the current "tree menu" system. You'd probably have to have a workspace header and then contain projects within a workspace within it's own "box" so that you can have a local/remote view per-project. You'd probably want to create a toggle feature in the settings so that users that like the tree menu for multiple projects (so that they can drag and drop files from one project to another or something if people do that) can still do so.

Basically, what I imagine is this: You have a drop-down that allows you to select your "Workspace". This alone would be a nice feature so that I could easily bounce between workspaces instead of having to go up to the File Menu. Then, once you select a workspace, it would open the most recently opened project within that workspace in the project form area. The project window would, then, also have a drop-down so that you can toggle which project within the workspace you want to manage...then to the right of that drop-down to select the project, you'd have another drop-down that would default to "Local View" but would allow you to select "Remote View" if applicable for that project. You should be able to make the UI do this without having to change any data stored in the workspace or projects data files.

As-is, the workspace system is actually useless to me with the current layout...I have to create a separate workspace for every single project...it's too "messy" otherwise. However, if you did a drop-down system like what I'm describing above, that would no longer be the case. Then, it would be quite useful to have all projects of a particular category within workspaces...e.g. I could have a "Staged Sites" workspace and a "Live Sites" workspace and then have the projects drop-down populated with each project in those workspaces...if you have a toggle so that people can choose the tree-view or project-select view, then everyone would be happy. Or if you wanted to add some data to the workspace data, you could add a toggle field to that so that people could select tree-view or project-select view on a per-workspace, which might be even better for some people...you'd still need to add a workspace drop-down select somewhere for either view, but that should be the easy part.

Anyway, if you did the above, that would pretty much enable me to never use Dreamweaver again, and I think it would add a great deal of value to the ease of use and organization of phpED, which would make it easier for people to switch from DW to phpED. The ability for multiple views and the .LCK file generation for check-in/out are the only things keeping me from uninstalling DW.

Hope the post wasn't too long :-p

Kevin