Remote files and editing

Remote files and editing

This page is about the files pane beside every SSH tab, and the two ways to edit a remote file: in Cablebag's own editor, or with a program on this PC.

The files pane

Every SSH tab can show the server's files beside the terminal. Ctrl+Shift+E shows or hides the pane for the tab you are in. Whether it opens when a session connects is set under Settings, Connections, Remote files when an SSH session connects (Show or Don't show); a session can choose differently in its editor under Remote files when this session connects.

SFTP and FTP sessions open the files on their own, without a terminal.

In the pane:

• The toolbar has Parent folder, Home folder, Refresh, Follow the terminal's folder, Upload files, Download selected, New folder, New file and Delete selected. Type a path in the box and press Enter to jump there.
• Drag files in from Explorer to upload them into the folder you are looking at ("Drop files here to upload").
• Right-click a file for Edit in Cablebag, Open with a program on this PC, Download, Rename, Permissions, Copy path, Paste path into terminal (also the middle mouse button) and Delete. A folder has Open folder and Go to this folder in the terminal (types cd and the folder for you).

Following the terminal

With Follow the terminal's folder on (the link button; on unless you switched it off), the files go to the folder you cd to in the terminal. When you browse somewhere else in the files yourself, they stay there until the terminal changes folder again.

Nothing is typed into your terminal for this. After you press Enter, Cablebag asks the server on a channel of its own which folder the terminal's shell is in. That works on Linux servers; on others the button says the server does not tell. A shell that reports its folder itself (OSC 7, as some prompts do) is followed without asking. When the program in the foreground belongs to another user (after sudo -i), the files stay at the folder of your own shell.

Edit in Cablebag

Double-click a text file, or right-click it and choose Edit in Cablebag. It opens in an editor tab over SFTP, with line numbers and Ctrl+S.

Before anything is written, Cablebag shows exactly what changes on the server: removed lines in red, new lines in green. From there, save it or choose Keep editing.

• Keep a .bak (also in the review: Keep the server's version as .bak): the version on the server is kept as name.bak, as private as the file itself. The message after saving names the backup.
• Cablebag refuses to overwrite a file that changed on the server since you opened it, so you cannot wipe out someone else's edit by accident.
• An editor tab with unsaved changes shows a dot and asks before it closes.

Edit with a Windows program

Larger or binary files open with a program on this PC: right-click, Open with a program on this PC. Cablebag downloads the file, opens it with the program Windows uses for that file type, and uploads it again when you save.