Can anyone recommend an open source IDE that works well for theming IPS? I want to work directly on my "Designer's Mode" files on my test server.

I'd rather not work on the files directly, but that's what I will be doing if I can't find a free (or cheap) IDE that will allow me to connect to my server env and modify files directly via remote IDE.

 

Thanks in advance

https://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/

It's not open source, but it's also not that expensive. Can pay monthly while you need it, and let it lapse when you don't. 

There's Sublime Text, NOT an IDE but can emulate some aspects of an IDE, and it's free. 

Thanks @Aiwa I am using jetbrains for RoR stuff as well and wasn't sure if there was a better 'free' option. But I will check it out.

I use phpstorm, but you might try https://code.visualstudio.com/ it's free (I haven't use it but it looks nice).

Sublime Text has a permanent free trial as I recall, and is a fairly well rounded editor.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I was able to download and install a Webstorm trial, which should be similar to PHPstorm and RubyMine.

Next question: I'd like to work on my test server files directly by syncing to a remote folder rather than download and upload in bulk to test each small change. I've been finding that this is not so easy for some reason, but it makes perfect sense to me and shouldn't require that I configure a bunch of other software to facilitate (i.e., hack). I'd rather not set up a local server or create a Git to sync with my IDE and my server, as that will take more time and pain to configure than just getting into the theme directly without the IDE.

Any thoughts?

For quite some time I worked with Sublime out of a Dropbox folder that was symlinked on my server to the webroot of my IPS test install. I've since dropped that complexity and just run localhost for development. That or use FTP to push / pull files as needed. 

I've always used https://atom.io/ for theming 

totally free. not IDE tho but it has some functionally, you can check it out 😉