Absolutely. If the server you're connecting to has an x server installed, you can use X forwarding to use a GUI text editor on the server itself. If you use linux on your client computer, try ssh -X <hostname
and then start a GUI program (use an &
after the command if you want the text editor to run in the background so you can keep using the console). If you're on Windows, find how to turn on X Forwarding in your SSH client (in PuTTY, it's under SSH -> X11), and then install Xming, an X server for Windows. Then you can use X forwarding the same as if you were on Linux.
If the server doesn't have an X server installed (virtually all server distros do, even though you don't normally use a GUI on them!), you can use a text editor with built-in SFTP (secure file transfer protocol) support like Komodo Edit. SFTP is functionality built in to SSH, so the server doesn't need any extra software.
1"Modern" does not have to be a GUI. Ask any vim or emacs user. – user1686 – 2011-05-03T05:11:01.470