The eclipse Open Source Visual IDE Threatens Macromedia/Adobe—Not Microsoft

The experience here, from SonghaySystem.com, is that eclipse plus ASDT and PHPeclipse—and Macromedia’s track record invariably inherited by Adobe—easily inspires me blow off whatever Dreamweaver will be for the next few years. I think I need to throw in a css editor too…### My Savage Attempt to Replace Dreamweaver with eclipseI tried to replace Dreamweaver with eclipse. The short story is that my attempt failed because I am unable to locate a tool that replaces FTP-based file synchronization features in Dreamweaver. The following table summarizes: <

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[FileZilla](http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/) This tool replaces almost every feature I need in [CuteFTP](http://globalscape.com/cuteftppro/)—except synchronization features (which are way, *way* slower than those in Dreamweaver). [PowerFolder](http://www.powerfolder.com/) This Java-based utility is optimized for peer to peer rich communication and not ‘dumb’ folder synchronization. [Sftp File Synchronization Plugin](http://www.klomp.org/eclipse/org.klomp.eclipse.team.sftp/) This eclipse plug in is not working as expected with PHP projects. The documentation states, “Right-click on a project, then select **Team > Target Site**.” This menu item is simply not there. Moreover, it is just a part of the eclipse Team Synchronizing Workspace in (Eclipse FTP and WebDAV Support 3.1.0). [Eclipse FTP and WebDAV Support 3.1.0](http://www.phpeclipse.de/tiki-index.php?page=FTP+and+WebDAV) This feature worked in the first session after the remote folder was downloaded. This prerequisite can get quite irritating when hundreds of megabytes of data are needed. In subsequent sessions, an “internal error” was produced. I am still searching the Web for some clue about why this is not working with PHP projects. It probably works great for Java projects. [FileSync plugin for Eclipse](http://andrei.gmxhome.de/filesync/index.html) This tool appears to be related to the “builder” in Java projects. I am unable to find the PHP project equivalent. [NetDrive](http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/novell/netdrive.htm) and [AllwaySync](http://allwaysync.com/) AllwaySync is slower than Dreamweaver. It seems to find differences between files on a NetDrive drive repeatedly. [NetDrive](http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/novell/netdrive.htm) and [SyncToy](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx) SyncToy is the slowest of them all and has no filtering options. [Synchronization Manager](http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/synchmgr_onidle.mspx) In this context, this is actually a subset of SyncToy! In SyncToy terms, the Windows XP Synchronization Manager is just the “Subscription” option. [NetDrive](http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/novell/netdrive.htm) and [SyncBackSE](http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html) Great user interface. Has the option to use a (slow) Hash-based file comparison algorithm that downloads tons of stuff during FTP folder comparisons. Not using this option (which not really an option for me) produces similar results seen in [AllwaySync](http://allwaysync.com/) (but is must faster). [NetDrive](http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/novell/netdrive.htm) and [Unison File Synchronizer](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) This Linux/Wintel command-line tool uses the same, time-consuming comparison techniques as [SyncBackSE](http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html) and [AllwaySync](http://allwaysync.com/)—all with debatable accuracy. I am even more curious about how Dreamweaver does what it does so relatively fast. ### What about the Other “Great Features” of Dreamweaver?I am sure that there are some “designers” out there ready to write me off a philistine for needing only Dreamweaver for its Synchronization features. Dreamweaver is the best solution for such folk in that traditional, Web-1.0 market. And I am sure these folks have never seen what Visual Studio 2005 can do to a CSS file all night long. And another thing that any HTML slinger can understand: Dreamweaver 2004’s user interface (in Microsoft Windows) does not have any magnification features for dialogs and panels—so at 1600×1200 I have to damn near squint to see my project files! I don’t see much improvement over this primal inconvenience in Dreamweaver 8.

Anyway… It was mistake for me to underestimate just how great file synchronization is in Dreamweaver. I was surprised to find a commercial market actually demanding payment for these features.

Comments

zen, 2006-08-23 06:19:55

with netdrive, u can mount a fake network drive over ftp. have u tried using ant for synchronization ? ant copies only newer file. so im talking abt this sort of setup:

local copy of the source, managed by eclipse. u develop and test whatever u want in here
when u happy, issue ant target to deploy, which will copy (only) the modified files to the netdrive drive, essentially doing synch between ur local env with the server side. From my memory the file modification is defined by using last-modified timestamp. newer file meansnewer timestsamp, thus gets copied.

heheh at least I havent seen this strategy up there, and I THINK (yes havent tried it) it might work :-p

rasx(), 2006-08-23 18:44:53

I did not know ant could be used this way... will start to look for the relevant tutorials...

rasx()