# Objective
Follow-up of #61374.
Zed now supports Windows as a remote target, but when connecting from a
Unix platform to Windows, some path handling still uses the native
client's path style (Unix) to construct paths, which causes weird path
displays in different areas.
One of them is the project path stored in the `settings.json` file,
which is related to the open path picker in the codebase:
5e1fd392f6/crates/open_path_prompt/src/open_path_prompt.rs (L668-L679)
For example, if I have a remote project at `D:\code\test_python` and
want to open it in remote development, I usually use path completions,
with `D:\code\` as the parent path and `test_python` as the selected
candidate. Zed directly joins them using `Path::join` on the Unix
platform, which results in `D:\code\/test_python`.
A second thing I found is the displayed name for the git repo. The
related source code is:
5e1fd392f6/crates/title_bar/src/title_bar.rs (L262-L268)
Also taking `D:\code\test_python` as an example: the passed-in
`common_dir_abs_path` is `D:\code\test_python\.git`, and
`repo_identity_path()` directly uses `Path::file_name()` and
`Path::parent()` from the standard library to handle this:
5e1fd392f6/crates/project/src/git_store.rs (L9956-L9965)
Ideally, this function should return `D:\code\test_python`. But due to
the platform mismatch, `D:\code\test_python\.git` is returned; after
further processing in the title bar, we get `D:\code\test_python\` as
the displayed name, while the expected display name is `test_python`.
In the past, only Unix-like systems could serve as remote servers, and
their path separator (`/`) is valid on Windows, so everything looked
fine. But Unix does not support `\` as a valid separator — that's the
root cause. We need to use `PathStyle`, which is designed for processing
paths across platforms, to deal with these cases.
## Solution
- Added new APIs `PathStyle::parent()` and `PathStyle::file_name()`,
which serve as replacements for `Path::parent()` and `Path::file_name()`
to process paths cross-platform.
- Adopted the new APIs in `repo_identity_path()`, and updated the
relevant call sites.
- For the open path picker, use `PathStyle::join_path()` instead of
`Path::join`.
## Testing
The added `PathStyle::parent()` and `PathStyle::file_name()` are covered
by detailed unit tests. These tests verify that the behavior matches the
corresponding methods in `Path`, just independent of the host platform.
For the path display issues, I built and tested manually; a comparison
is attached in the Showcase section.
## Self-Review Checklist:
- [x] I've reviewed my own diff for quality, security, and reliability
- [x] Unsafe blocks (if any) have justifying comments
- [x] The content adheres to Zed's UI standards
([UX/UI](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist)
and
[icon](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/crates/icons/README.md)
guidelines)
- [ ] Tests cover the new/changed behavior
- [x] Performance impact has been considered and is acceptable
## Showcase
<details>
<summary>Click to view showcase</summary>
| Content | Before | After |
|:--:|:--:|:--:|
|title bar|<img width="486" height="272" alt="title_bar_before"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d14d0e37-a1b8-43ab-b51b-fe9dd1b977eb"
/> | <img width="406" height="274" alt="title_bar_after"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fc9193f4-d42c-47a8-a254-4ed08c806a11"
/> |
|path storage| <img width="337" height="264" alt="project_path_before"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3352add3-20df-43b9-8a20-10ee7d96e703"
/>| <img width="319" height="262" alt="project_path_after"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fa3d7feb-f393-416a-868d-85eb0af5cfb8"
/>|
|open remote| <img width="554" height="135" alt="open_remote_before"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/62983eca-22ad-472f-8333-8561cfc17357"
/>|<img width="562" height="176" alt="open_remote_after"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/22528a6b-0e73-4a12-a825-673ba57a63da"
/> |
</details>
## Other things to note
This PR also did a little refactoring: it moved the `PathStyle`-related
tests from the `util` crate to the `path` crate, and updated the
documentation to reflect that Windows can serve as a remote platform.
The recent project picker also suffers from the same cross-platform bug,
but it is not fixed here, because a clean fix requires dealing with
database storage, unlike the direct API changes made here. I will
address it in a follow-up PR.
This PR looks very large, but most of the changes are the test migration
and the new API implementation. I hope the unit tests and comments can
offload some of the burden for reviewers.
---
Release Notes:
- Fixed project paths being built incorrectly when connecting from Unix
machines to Windows remote servers.
fa00dccc42