Show Aptana Studio website/code preview in Virtual Machine's browser

Question

Using VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host I have set up a Windows 7 guest and made several snapshots/linked clones with each having the next version of IE on them starting at 8 going up to 11. Yes I know there are IE VMs on ModernIE however I prefer my own VMs for this.

Now when I fire up Aptana Studio that I have installed on the host and have a Host-only network connection between the host and the guest, how would I be able to see the preview Aptana Studio gives me, normally on the localhost IP, 127.0.0.1:8020/NAME_OF_PROJECT, in the guest's browser?

Of course when I check that address in the guest's browser it won't show the site preview since that is the address for the local machine, so the guest itself.

I am more thinking of telling Aptana Studio to send the site preview to the guest's IP address on the local network by adding it to the Aptana Studio Network Connection Preferences. See link (could not post the image due to lack of points) below for the preferences options.

Though I would also like to be able to check the site preview on the host in various browsers, Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc, as well without having to change the Aptana Studio Network Connection Preferences each time I like to preview the site in the Guest and the various versions of IE.

How do other developers solve this generally? I am somewhat semi-experienced with networking but would be very happy about help or links to detailed helping topics about this. Did not know testing sites in various versions of IE requires so much setting up. I am sure there is an easy way or at least and easy to follow tutorial on this.

Would be very happy about help with this that let's me set up my development and IE testing environment so I can get back to coding. Thank you :)

Aptana Studio Network Connection Preferences

Answer 1

On the host get the IP of the VirtualBox Host-Only Network adaptper with Start -> run -> cmd -> ipconfig /all.

In Aptana Studio go to Window -> Preferences -> Aptana Studio -> Web Servers -> Built-in and select the IP that the VirtualBox Host-Only Network adapter is using. If you have installed both Aptana Studio and VirtualBox on the host the exact same IP should be coming up. Select this IP and restart Aptana Studio.

Now start your guest VM. Open Internet Explorer in the guest VM and copy and paste the URL Aptana Studio gives you when you click Preview in Aptana Studio. It should start with something like: http://192.168.56.1:8020/NAME_OF_PROJECT/index.html for example.

There you go.