Quick Tip: Add Existing Code as New Project in Aptana Studio

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Another quick tip for WordPress plugin developers.

Long time readers (bofem) know that I use Aptana Studio as my toolkit for WordPress plugin development. No, that’s not an Aptana affiliate link, but I sure wish it was. Aptana doesn’t have an affiliate marketing system in place. I emailed to ask. If they did, I’d be delighted to promote Aptana Studio. Actually, I’m delighted to promote it without compensation. The more people using Aptana, the more leverage we all get from our combined user experience.

Following the lead of wprecipes.com, it’s nice to have a very simple procedure for common tasks that are hard to remember. It’s a big forest out there, and there’s a lot of trees blocking the view. Here’s one path through that forest.

Using Aptana for existing code

Here’s the situation: you have existing code, and you want to use Aptana Studio for development. Looking at the File menu you find “New >” and “Import…”

The obvious action – to me – is “Import…”

The obvious is wrong!

Instead, you need to create a “new project.”

“Import” is for adding existing Aptana projects to your workspace, not for adding existing code. So…

“How do you do that?”

As usual, takes seconds once you know what to do, and here’s what to do.

New project for existing code

Here’s the procedure for Aptana 1.5 & 2.0. I’m assuming you are coding directly from the WordPress plugins directory, but it really doesn’t matter where your files and directories are located.

Create or copy the code into the plugins directory, or check some existing code out from svn, git whatever.
In the Aptana perspective, Choose the “Project” tab.
Right click in the Project tab, choose “New > Project…”
In the popup modal New Project dialog box, choose “General > Project.”
Name the project. I like to use the same name as the directory name of the plugins, because (my) plugins are small, and it’s more bit literate for me: it’s easier to match the project to the directory on the system. Click the “Next” button.
Uncheck “Use default location,” browse for the location of the code you want to create a project for. Click the “Finish” button.

Simple stuff. Seems almost too simple to write down. But, I always forget the exact procedure, and have to fumble around for 10 or 15 minutes. Now, I can just look it up.

Would you like a screencast? I might make one… but only if there’s interest.