4.0 Getting Started
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4.1 Getting files from an FTP site
It's very simple. Just follow these instructions:
- Be sure you have installed all of the necessary software
- Double click the NetFinder icon
- The "New FTP Connection" dialog will appear. It looks like this:

- Enter the internet address of a FTP site and any other information like your login name and password. You can also enter the path for a directory in the FTP site. If you are connecting to a public site, leave the middle two lines blank. If you are unsure about the "Path:", leave it blank.
- Click "Connect". NetFinder will try to connect to the FTP site. If all goes well, a directory listing window will appear (if you specified the location of a file on the FTP site instead of a directory, NetFinder will start downloading it instead of bringing up a listing window). Listing windows are explained in more detail in the next section.
- Just as you would do to copy a file on your Mac's hard disk, you can click and drag a file from the listing window to somewhere on your Mac's disk and NetFinder will copy it from the FTP site to your disk. Try it. It couldn't be any simpler, right? :-)
- When you're done, you can close the listing window, even if the transfer hasn't finished - don't worry, the transfer won't stop until you tell it to.
- If you're short on time or you get disconnected, just click the Stop button in the transfer dialog. NetFinder will remember where it was up to so you can continue the transfer at a later date without having to transfer the whole file again, assuming that the FTP server supports partial files. Most servers do support partial files but some don't. The icon in the transfer dialog shows a green tick for servers that are known to support partial files.
- To continue downloading the file, just double click the partial file's icon. Be careful not to move the partially downloaded file off the disk it's on, otherwise NetFinder won't be able to find it and so will not be able to continue downloading the file.
4.2 Getting Other Applications To Use NetFinder For FTP transfers
There is one really good reason why you should do this: NetFinder supports partial files. As far as we are aware, NetFinder is the only Mac FTP client which will allow you to continue downloading a partially downloaded file without having to download the entire file all over again. This can save you time as well as money if you pay "by the meter" for time online. This is especially nice when used for downloading a file via a World Wide Web browser, because no web browsers support continuing a partially downloaded file. Also, some browsers tend to crash on you during a transfer or tend to stop transferring a file during the transfer.
To make a Netscape web browser use NetFinder for FTP transfers, double click the "Tell Netscape3 (or Netscape2) to use NetFinder" AppleScript program, which is included in the NetFinder distribution package. To revert Netscape to its normal behaviour, you have to either quit and restart Netscape Navigator Standard 3.0.1 or use the "Tell Netscape3 not to use NF" AppleScript program with Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0.1. Reason: it appears that the "undo" script does not work with Standard 3.0.1 but that the "use NF" script's changes are temporary, whereas with Gold 3.0.1, the "use NF" script's changes are permanent and the "undo" script does work on it. Why there is this discrepancy is not known.
To make Microsoft's Internet Explorer use NetFinder for FTP transfers, you need to configure Internet Config to use NetFinder as the FTP helper program (in Internet Config's "helpers" panel).
To make other programs use NetFinder for FTP transfers, you need to configure Internet Config to use NetFinder as the FTP helper program (in Internet Config's "helpers" panel). As long as those programs "talk" to Internet Config, NetFinder will automatically be used for FTP transfers when you open FTP URLs in those programs. Some Internet Config aware applications include the latest versions of Eudora, NewsWatcher, and BBEdit.
Go to the Table Of Contents, go back to 3.0 Installation or go forward to 5.0 Detailed Instructions.
Copyright © 1997, Peter Li and Vincent Tan.