Eclipse Project - need to have a copy locally and a copy on a remote server

Question

I develop in PHP using Zend Studio - operating as an Eclipse plugin - has a really nice feature called "Automatic Upload" that can be configured on a per Project basis. This feature allows one to define a remote connection to a server for a Project, and also specify whether file copy to the remote server is "manual" or "on save".

We use the "on save" option extensively, as it allows us to edit a file via Eclipse, save it, and immediately see the file in play on our remote web server.

Specifically the functionality we are after is as follows:

1. Create or edit a local file in Eclipse

2. On Save of the local copy, automatically creates / updates the remote copy

3. On Delete of the local copy, deletes the remote copy

(cut/copy & paste behave in a conceptually equivalent way)

and

Manual batch "upload to remote" and "download from remote" menu options that allows full upload / download of all files as well as manual cherry picking of files to upload or download.

This feature is really nice and has very broad application so I expected it to be standard Eclipse functionality, however I have installed Eclipse Oxygen, and can't find it. I have subsequently done rather a lot of searching, and although there are some manual options that have appeared, the closest I can find to an automated copy equivalent is the Parallel Development Tools plug-in which provides a "Synchronized Project" option.

Synchronized Projects require git running on both local and remote and a git folder structure inserted into the Project. Additionally, hidden files are injected into every Project sub-folder.

The above renders Synchronized Projects too "heavy" and potentially problematic to manage for us.

So I am fairly desperately looking for an Eclipse Oxygen (or Neon is fine) plug-in that provides the functionality outlined above.

Your input is greatly welcomed. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can do this by a project builder Ant buildfile. Alternative, there are others build system that are implements the Eclipse project builder (to be executed on save), but which must be installed separately. You can also implement your own incremental project builder in Java.

Answer 2

While not exactly remote sync, a little lateral thinking has given me exactly what we need. What I did is as follows:

Remote (linux)

1. Install Samba
2. Use Samba to present the desired folder as a Windows share

Local (PC)

Windows File explorer

• mapped the remote windows share to a local mapped drive

Eclipse

• downloaded and installed the File Sync plug-in from Eclipse market place

• right-clicked on my Project and selected Properties => File synchronisation, and configured the desired folders (setting the "remote" as the mapped drive)

• and one final item (because we are mapping from a Windows local to a Linux remote) : Window => Preferences => General => Workspace Set "New text file line delimiter" to "Other => Unix"

And hey presto, everything is working 100%.