Site managers who work in highly-sensitive campus units may not be able to connect via Git, SSH, drush, or SFTP to outside services due to security restrictions. Pantheon is unable to provide fixed IP addresses, so it is not possible to add firewall exceptions for individual sites.
Other site managers may not be able to install the required software clients on their computers.
In either case, you can still accomplish the most common development tasks using the Pantheon dashboard and the Drupal site interface in your browser.
Things you can do in the browser
- Apply Drupal core updates and distribution updates: These can, and should, always be done from the Pantheon dashboard. When a core or distribution update is available, you will see the Apply Updates section on your dev environment dashboard. You'll need to be in Git mode to apply them, so commit any other changes you've made first.
- Update modules and themes: Make sure you're in SFTP mode on the Pantheon dashboard, then visit admin/modules/update. You will be able to choose which modules/themes to update, download the code directly to the Pantheon server, and run the database updates from that page.
- Install new modules: Again, you have to be in SFTP mode. Go to admin/modules/install and input a URL or upload a module file you've downloaded. For new modules, you can pick any release of the module, including the dev version, but unless there's a very compelling reason you should always pick the latest recommended release.
- Install new themes: Themes work the same way, except that you install new themes from admin/appearance/install.
- Add file content: If you need to upload individual content files into sites/default/files, you can add them via a content type with a file field, or use a module such as Media/File Entity, which includes some file management features.
Things you cannot do in the browser
You won't be able to update to a version other than the latest recommended, apply a patch, or revert to an earlier version of a previously installed module (even if you've uninstalled it via the Drupal site interface). If your module requires a separate library, and the module itself does not have a function to retrieve it, you will not be able to add the library.