Editing files from a Raspberry Pi on my iPad: which editor?

I’m working on a (private) plugin for Homebridge. So far I have been using Blink Shell to ssh into my (headless) Raspberry Pi from my iPad Pro and editing files with vi. Quite a PITA, so now I’m looking for a nice iOS editor which allows me to edit files on the iPad and seamlessly sync them to the Raspberry Pi (via SFTP?). I found a few, but all are more expensive than a (single) cup of coffee, so your advice is welcome before I buy any:

Anyone using any of these? Tips? Did I miss a good one?

Minimal requirements:

  • Seamless syncing to Raspberry Pi
  • JavaScript syntax highlighting

Bonus points:

  • Working Copy support (so that I can manage files on my iPad, instead of the commandline on the Pi)

You might take a look at Kodex:

I tried that App some time ago.

As far as I know it can only edit files from iCloud Drive?

(so no seamless syncing with a Raspberry Pi?)

It can open from anywhere you can access via the Files app.

I like Textastic for what little editing I do, and it seems to fit your needs. S/FTP and RegEx support is there. Also supports WebDav, Dropbox, Google Drive…

Beats vi any day of the week :wink:

That said, I have heard a lot of great things about Coda as well. Just a bit more of power tool than I need.

Ah, I missed the “< Locations” on the upper left corner…

That might work if I can offer the home folder of my Pi as a Location, but how would I do that?

You could run Dropbox (or some other cloud service that works on Linux) on the Pi.

I use Coda for this and have done for years. It has native SFTP support and syntax highlighting which is nice.

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I’m using Coda to do software development on a Linux server at work. It’s fantastic! I can’t say enough good things about it.

Textastic + Working Copy

I accidently found Koder Code Editor which is currently free.

Using this App I learned that editing files stored on the Raspberry Pi on my iPad via SFTP works pretty well.

Unfortunately the App has no Working Copy support and physical keyboard support seems limited, so I will still need to switch to one of the paid Apps.

I don’t mind paying for a good App that adds convenience/value to what I do, but this is the kind of situation where I wish the App Store had trials, so I could try all these Apps and then purchase the one that fits my needs best.

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I ended up considering this a research project and bought them all… (yesterday)

First impression: Textastic seems to suit my workflow best; Coda is the most polished.

(might post an update later when I have some more experience)

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After a using all Apps for a couple of days Coda seems to be my (new) favourite.

Textastic might have won if this was not happening:

  • it looses the connection to download/upload now and then
  • it maps Control+A to some Emmet dialog (which I don’t use) instead of “start of line”

(I think the “polished” part also plays a role)

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