OS X editor help

Having a problem here getting one of our developers working with our (Linux/LAMP) development server. Everyone else seems to be happy with SSHing into the (Linux) dev servers and working remotely. This person is intent on staying with their Mac (and seems to be somewhat attached to Textmate). Currently, whenever they pick up a new project (we're a small web-dev/design shop, so this is fairly often) there's a lot of overhead involved in getting her set up to work on it. Currently we have 3 not-very-good workflows :

1) Do a subversion check-out on the Mac. Commit every change. Update on the Linux box. Test. Repeat
2) Get a complete copy of the tree on the Mac. Use some Textmate/Transmit integration to SFTP the files to dev.
3) Set up a complete development/test environment on the mac. Work there. Hope everything migrates cleanly back to the Linux machine.

The first option is obviously heinous. The second isn't so bad but it's got a bit of excessive setup and can get annoying when adding/moving/renaming files. The third is a lot of work & can cause problems with mismatches between multiple development environments and production servers.

Are there any good OSX editors that provide a transparent access to remote files (over SSH/SFTP)? Ideas for a better work-flow? Ways to convince the developer that vim is the One True Editor?

If you are in a position to, I would tell her to suck it up and use Vim if that's your company standard. Barring exporting the necessary part of the filesystem via NFS, I am not sure how you could give her seamless access to the remote files. Whether she thinks textmate makes her more efficient or not, worrying about a separate ugly workflow is definitely compensation for any gains.

Either go w/ option 3 (easy on the mac) or make her use vim. I can understand why she likes textmate though, it really is great.

How about mount up linux as sshfs, cifs, nfs, or otherwise and edit it locally?

Use sshfs (http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html) in FUSE to mount the SFTP share as a local filesystem. Then just open the stuff with Textmate or any other local editor. Any time the file is saved locally it's just uploaded back to the SFTP server.

Just as an aside, I'd rage if you tried to make me use vim too. Emacs wipes the floor with it.

EDIT: Realized you probably want a link to MacFUSE rather than vanilla FUSE:
http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/downloads/list

The fact that your developer can't work seemlessly with your system from a mac probably speaks to a deficiency in your build/development/source control systems.

Best option to use textmate and not have to change anything source control related would be to just mount nfs.

You really should make your source control work from wherever though.

I think the problem is user error. Here's a super easy way that doesn't involve any extra mounts or any extra apps. In Transmit, set the default editor to textmate, set the double click action to edit in external editor. Now the developer can use SFTP via transmit and not have to save anything locally. When they double click the files it will open them in Textmate, when they hit cmd+s (to save) it will automatically upload the changes to the server.

A couple other options, this is IMO the best option. Use Coda from Panic (same makers as Transmit). Just download a trial and try it out, you'll see why this is the best option. There is no better way to edit web pages

Another option is Textwrangler from the makers of BBEdit (or even BBEdit if you want to pay). This app can handle the SFTP connection and is a good edit as well.

Last option, I'm sure there is some plugin for textmate that could handle it as well.

Textmate is an awesome must have app, so I have provided a solution using everything you already have. If you don;t mind spending a little bit (I think it's about $80) Coda is the cleanest and best solution. Hope these suggestions help.

If you have to worry about versions or check-out/check-in with multiple developers then you are stuck using Subversion, but I don't see what the big issue with that is either. The developer just needs to be diligent about checking-out and checking-in (which is common with any subversion environment, PC or Mac)

For now, it looks like the MacFUSE stuff will do what's needed. Coda might be worth looking into some time in the future when there's not so much time pressure.

thx