Xgineer Solutions, Inc

On any given workday the average developer probably uses a couple of heavyweight tools complimented by a slew of plugins and applets without which writing code would be far more arduous. These lightweight lifesavers are rarely celebrated, even though many of them are not so widely known. I think other developers might benefit from awareness of these tiny utilities and so I would like to bring them to the forefront. Thus in every “Small Things” blog post I am going to highlight a tool which makes my daily grind a little smoother.

Back in the day when developers were hacking away at impatient terminals, lines of code flying from their fingers, I bet they never dreamed of the slick IDEs we have today. Now we have tools like NetBeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc. These powerful all-inclusive applications have both sophisticated GUIs and tons of bells and whistles. Furthermore most mainstream IDEs, in addition to offering standard features like syntax highlighting and debugger integration, also allow developers to extend their functionality through plugins. Some of the plugins available for tools like Eclipse are very powerful and really help a developer cut across the application space. One such plugin, Esftp for Eclipse, has made my life a little better every time I’ve used it.

Esftp for Eclipse is a at heart a very simple tool. To use the plugin is easy, simply download and install it, then all that is left is configuring an Eclipse project with an FTP server. Afterwards you can one-click upload/download files from that FTP. No launching a second application solely to handle FTP transfer, no battling with a terminal, simply click a tiny icon in your GUI and voila your working copy gets synced with a remote copy.

Some developers may scoff at such a humble tool, however an uncluttered workspace does wonders for productivity. I cannot speak for every developer, but one of the worst enemies of my work flow harmony is clutter. The benefits of Esftp for Eclipse to organization are pretty clear, specifically you can manage local and remote working copies with ease and within your IDE. You can also juggle a variety of projects hosted on a variety of FTPs without having to to wear your finger out from switching applications.

Esftp for Eclipse is a fantastic little plugin which really helps me keep my taskbar clean. If you have to battle with a standalone FTP application and already use Eclipse, I strongly recommend you take a look at Esftp for Eclipse and see if it might help de-clutter your desktop.

Take a look at the Esftp plugin for Eclipse: http://www.chris-alex-thomas.com/projects/esftp/

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