Reading / Writing files through php-ftp

I have gone about the following problem a number of ways, and I am starting to think that php/ftp might not be capable of what I want, so I thought I would post here first. Thank you for taking a moment to read.

My problem:
Apache & FTP server set up on server machine.
I want a user to be able to view through the web all the files in a particular folder on the server, click a link to that document, have the document open & be saveable BACK to the server.

I was considering one option:
Use ftp_get to download the file to the local machine and have it open from the local machine, have the user save to their local machine, then have a button in the browser that will upload that file to replace the one on the server.
The problem here is that I am not sure how to have the web browser through which the user is accessing the server open up the document with the correct program. (Fork? pipe? hazy here, got those terms from the php manual)


Another hope:
Have the file open from the server (proc_open??) , allow the user to make changes, and then just hit save.


Thanks for taking the time to read this, if it is a poor question I apologize, but I have been unable to find anything on this specific question as yet.

-Jeff