Setting up Remote Projects


There are two ways to work with remote hosts: (1) a locally stored project file can reference remote resources, and (2) a project file stored on a remote host and opened remotely can transparently access resources on that remote host.

Local Project Files

For projects stored locally that need to access resources on another host, the Python Executable property in Project Properties is set to Remote to indicate that a project's Python resides on a remote host. The remote host configuration that is selected is typically an unshared configuration, so that it is stored in the project and will be accessible if the project is moved to another machine. Note, however, that remote host configurations may be specific to an individual machine's network environment, and may need to be edited on other hosts.

After Python Executable has been set, other properties that reference files, such as Initial Directory and Python Path, will be resolved on the remote host. The Browse buttons for those properties will browse the remote host, and paths will be stored as partial paths relative to the configured Base Directory or as full paths if located outside of the Base Directory. Paths on remote hosts are always expressed using forward slash / and will be converted as needed to the native separator on the remote host.

The selected remote host will also be used for adding files and directories to the project. When a URL for a remote file or directory is shown, it will be in the form ssh://hostid/path/to/file.py where hostid is one of the configured Remote Host IDs.

A locally stored project can include files and directories on multiple hosts, by adding several hosts and using Add Existing File and Add Existing Directory with each host.

Remote Project Files

Projects stored on a remote host are opened with Open Remote Project in the Project menu. This menu item is not shown unless you have already created a shared remote host configuration. Projects stored like this are normal Wing projects and may also be opened locally, if Wing can also be run on the remote host itself. In this case, Python Executable is simply set to Default, Command Line, or Activated Env, as if the project were stored locally. Wing resolves all the resources in the project file in a way that allows it to access them on the host where the project is stored.

If any remote host configurations are added to a remotely stored project, in order to access other remote hosts, those configurations must work on the host where the IDE is running.

Creating Project Files

To set up a new project that accesses a remote host, use New Project in the Project menu and select or create a remote host configuration from the Host menu. This will ask for the same fields described in the previous section, for creation of a remote host configuration. If you previously created a similar configuration, use the Recent Hosts drop down to copy that configuration.

Projects created from the New Project dialog are saved locally, which is the recommended approach for storing remote projects.

Storing Project Files Remotely

In some cases, storing the project file on the remote host is useful. This can be done by first creating a shared remote host configuration with the Remote Hosts dialog, accessed from the Debug menu, then creating a new project using that shared configuration, and finally choosing Save Project on Remote Host from the Project menu to store the project on the remote host.

Note that this menu item is not shown if you do not have any shared remote host configurations defined because there is no way to later open the project if you do not have a shared locally stored remote host configuration for that host.

A regularly created local project can also be moved to a remote host with Save Project On Remote Host. Saving the project in this way moves only the project file itself, and assumes that resources referenced by the project will also be available on the remote host, with the same relative paths from the project file.