I have a big php/ajax web app and I need to assign tasks for coders to work on this application. I don't want to have to give them the full source code, db, etc.

Is there a FTP tool that coders can use to work directly on my web server, and have it be similar to working on their local machine? (assuming web connection is fast, etc.)

thanks.

Nope

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol There is no provision for editing.

We do this all the time using Fetch / BBEdit on Mac

Thanks webwest. I've seen this feature mentioned in some products like Dreamweaver, but I've never used the feature of working on the server, so I didn't know if they worked the way I wanted - or if there were any problems in doing coding this way.

Any other coders want to comment?

DW doesn't allow you to edit "on the server" it GETs (downloads) the page, lets you edit it, then PUTs (uploads) it back to the server. Just like every other FTP program will do.

If your host has a control based file manager, you could use that in text mode to get around the GET / PUT issue using FTP. Create a login for a coder and just give them access to (ie) one directory.

Of course you could do the same thing with FTP access, only allow a coder to access (ie) one directory, but you did specify 'work directly on my web server' ...

You can use and IDE like Aptana or Netbeans that supports synchronization that allows them to work on the files they need and will sync them when they are changed.

You can use Eclipse wth ftp/sftp plugin, but it will tranfer files to localhost before editing.
Remote editing over ftp isn't possible, but over ssh/sftp is very easy with SFTP Plug-in for Eclipse