5.0 Detailed Instructions

1. Use the "New FTP Connection" dialog. Here's what it looks like:
   
   You can open the dialog by selecting "New FTP Connection..." from the File menu, or by using the command-E keyboard shortcut.

   The connection dialog consists of 4 text fields, the hostname, username, password and the path.

   For the Host field, enter a host name or a dotted IP address. For example, you can enter "ftp.info.au" or "129.78.64.1" (you don't enter the quotes of course).

   SHORTCUT: to specify a site whose name is "ftp.<some site>.com" site, you can enter just <some site> in the host field, for example, entering "apple" is the same as "ftp.apple.com". Similarly, you can enter "ftp.<some site>..<some country code>", for example, entering "apple..au" is the same as "ftp.apple.com.au".

   NOTE: to specify a port number other than the default port of 21, add ":<port number>" after the hostname. For example, "ftp.coolsite.org:23" to specify port 23 as the FTP port on "ftp.coolsite.org".

   For most anonymous FTP sites, you can leave the username and password fields blank, and the program will automatically substitute "anonymous" for the username and your e-mail address for the password. Your e-mail address is obtained from Internet Config.

   If there is a specific directory you wish to view, you can enter it into the path field. Similarly, if there is a specific file you wish to download, enter its full path into the path field.

   For example, you can enter the following as the path to view the "rec" directory on an info-mac mirror site:

   /mac/info-mac/rec/

   note the ending '/' - this tells NetFinder that you wish to do a directory listing. If it can't list this directory, it will list whatever directory you get logged into.

   If you wish to download the file "NetFinder.hqx", you can enter the following:

   /mac/info-mac/rec/NetFinder.hqx

   When you have entered all of your login details, click Connect to connect to the site.

   TIP: To force the collection of a fresh directory listing from the FTP server and not use any cached listing, press and hold down the control key until the listing has started to be collected.

   The dialog also has two handy buttons for connecting to whatever Info-Mac and U-Mich mirrors you have configured in Internet Config. Click either of them to load your preferred mirror site into the dialog and then click Connect to connect to the mirror site.

   If you connect to one site frequently, you can save yourself the trouble of entering its details again and again by making it the default site for the dialog. To do this, enter the site's details and then click "Make Default". That's all there is to it. When the dialog is next opened, your new default is automatically loaded in for you. Be aware that if you allow passwords to be exported, then any passwords you enter are NOT encrypted when the URL is saved, so you may prefer to leave the password field blank for the default URL, in which case NetFinder will ask you for a password when you try to open that URL.

   You can load a bookmark into the dialog by clicking the "Load Bookmark..." button.

   If you wish, you can save a bookmark to the FTP site so you don't have to re-enter all your details. First, enter all of the details you wish to save in the bookmar. Then click "Save As Bookmark...". A dialog will appear. Navigate to where you want to save the bookmark and give it a name. If you wish, you can save the bookmark as a normal bookmark or as a stationary pad bookmark by clicking on either of the two radio buttons. Click Save. The bookmark is saved.

   Another way to make a bookmark is by clicking in the URL text field and dragging the selected text to your Mac desktop or into a folder or into any Drag and Drop capable text window (such as a SimpleText window). When dragged to the desktop or a folder, a NetFinder bookmark file will be made. When dragged to a text window, the URL text is inserted at the drag insertion point. Alternatively, you can drag the URL into a bookmark list window.

   Similarly, any URL can be drag-and-dropped from a text window (such as a text editor or an e-mail program) into the connect dialog and it will be inserted into the appropriate fields. You can also drag and drop NetFinder bookmarks or any URL saved in a text file into this window - the only condition is that the URL must begin with "ftp://".

   WARNING: any bookmarks that you create or URLs that you drag out will include your password and it will be in cleartext - that is, not scrambled or hidden. This is not something you want to do if the Mac is used by many people or there are others watching your Mac's screen!

2. Double click a bookmark.
3. Open a FTP URL in any internet-aware program. For example, you can click on a link in a web browser configured to use NetFinder (like Netscape Navigator), click on a link in a text editor (like BBEdit), e-mail program (like Eudora), or USENET program (like Newswatcher) that is configured to open URLs.
4. Double click a NetFinder partial file icon. NetFinder will make a connection and continue downloading the file automatically.

NetFinder's listing window should look very familiar. It has been designed to be as easy to use as the Finder windows you are already used to. Below is a picture of a typical listing window.

Here are the important differences:

5.2.1 Current Directory Name

Like the Finder, this displays the name of the currently displayed folder. Command-click the text of the folder name to display a menu containing the names of the folders above and including the current one. If you then select the currently displayed folder from the menu, the current folder's contents are refreshed with a fresh listing from the FTP server (any cached listing is discarded). You can also select a higher folder from the menu and it will be opened in a separate window (or its window will be selected if it's already open). To force a re-list of a higher folder, hold down the control key when you command-click the menu.

5.2.2 Window Status Icon

This is the icon in the top left corner of the window. It represents the current status of the window. When the window is not doing anything, you will see a folder with a small picture of the world on it (as shown in the picture). When a directory listing is currently in progress, you will see this icon change into a spinning globe of the world.

TIP: this icon can be dragged to the desktop or a folder or into a drag-and-drop capable text window to create a bookmark to the currently displayed listing window. You can later open the bookmark to quickly and easily connect again to the same internet site.

5.2.3 Partial File Capability Indicator

This is the icon in the top right corner of the window. This icon represents whether the server you are currently connected to (as shown by the name under the title of the window) supports partial files. If partial files are supported, you will see an icon with a green tick on top of a partial file icon. If partial files are not supported, you will see an icon with a red cross instead. See Section 5.3 Downloading Files below for more information on partial files.

5.2.4 Remote Hostname

The name under the window title that starts with "ftp://" is the name of the server that the listing window is connected to. This is helpful when you are connected to several sites and need to know which site the listing window belongs to.

Section 5.5.2 Moving Files and Directories explains about moving files on the same server. By looking at the remote hostname area, you can identify whether you are moving a file to somewhere else on the same server.

5.2.5 Sort by Listing Order

This is the icon to the left of the "Name" label. Now you can click on the Name, Kind, Size or Date labels to sort the contents of the window to your whatever you chose. But sorting often takes time. The more items there are to sort, the longer it will take. This can take too long when sorting large directories. So to speed things up, you can leave the display "unsorted", that is, displayed in the order in which the information from the server is received.

5.2.6 View Expander

View expanders are the vertical bars to the left of the "Kind" and "Date" labels. They allow you to expand the view of the name of a file or its kind when it is too long to see in the current viewing space (hint: you start getting names that end with "..."). To see more of the name or kind, expand the view by dragging the View Expanders to the right.

About the listing window's display area

Below the header area is the display area containing the files and folders on the FTP site. Just as in the Finder, you can select items, drag-select across items to select multiple items, shift-click extra items, and deselect items by clicking the blank areas. You can click on the folder triangles to open them and see the contents of a folder. Click again to close them. Double click folder icons to open them in separate windows. Option-double-click them to open a window for that icon and close the current window behind it. Just about anything you can do in the Finder, you can also do in NetFinder's listing windows.

The real fun starts when you start dragging items out of the window. See the 5.3 Downloading Files and 5.4 Uploading Files sections below for information about transferring files.

About Directory Caching

NetFinder's FTP engine can cache directory listings, so it does not have to ask the server for information that it already has. In this version of NetFinder, you can only turn this caching on or off.

If it is off, NetFinder will always get its listings from the FTP server.

If it is on, NetFinder will get directory listings from its cache if it can. If the directory is not in the cache, it will then get the listing from the FTP server. There are two ways to force NetFinder to get a listing from the FTP server instead of its cache:

(1) open a directory with the control key pressed and held down. You can use this cache override mechanism when you:

1. double click a folder item or
2. twist down a folder triangle or
3. select a higher directory in the menu that appears when you command-click the listing window's title text, or
4. connect to a FTP site (using any of the possible connection methods, it will work as long as you keep the control key pressed until the directory starts to be listed).

(2) select the "Refresh Listing" command from the FTP menu (or press command-R).

About Window Positions

NetFinder remembers the window positions and the "sort by" method of all directories opened in a listing window.

TIP: This is a great feature when combined with a bookmark for, say, a "recently uploaded files" directory on a server. You probably always want to view this directory sorted by date. Well, since NetFinder remembers the sorting method, that directory will always will be displayed sorted by date.

NOTE: Window position information is stored in NetFinders' cache files and will thus be forgotten if you purge the directory cache (see section 6.3 Listings Pane in section 6.0 NetFinder preferences for more information).

1. Connect to a FTP site and open a listing window. After it has opened, select the item(s) to download and drag them to your desktop or a folder icon or folder window. The selected items will then be downloaded to your Mac's disk (or shared volume if the destination is a shared volume). You can even drag out folder icons and the entire contents of that folder will be downloaded into a folder with the same name at the destination. In other words, NetFinder will preserve the directory structure of the FTP directory and replicate it on your Mac's disk.

   TIP: command-drag-and-drop to move the selected files or folders. This will cause NetFinder to first download the files or folders and after each one is successfully downloaded, it is deleted from the FTP site (assuming you have the access rights to delete files and/or folders of course). This is handy if you move data to and from sites often.

2. Connect to a FTP site and open a listing window. After it has opened, select the item(s) to download and double click them or select "Open Selection" from the FTP menu or press command-down-arrow from the keyboard. All these operations will start a download of any of the file items selected. Note that selected folder items will be opened in separate listing windows.

3. Double click a partially downloaded file's icon. NetFinder will continue downloading the file starting at the point where it was last up to.

4. Double click a bookmark file whose URL refers to a file on a FTP site (as opposed to a folder).

5. Click a FTP link in an Internet Config aware program such as Newswatcher (assuming Internet Config is installed and set up to use NetFinder as the FTP program).

6. Click a FTP link in a web browser which has been configured to use NetFinder as the FTP program.

While downloading files, NetFinder uses a variety of options to work out what to do with the downloaded files. For example, you can configure NetFinder to automatically decode MacBinary and Binhex 4.0 encoded files, to "post-process" files, to keep partial files, to play a sound when it's done, and even to automatically rename files if there already is a file with the same name in the destination folder. See the section 6.5 Downloading Pane in section 6.0 NetFinder preferences for more information.

If you want to use a different decoding method for a particular download, you can:

• select the files/folders to download, and then press the option key. While keeping it held down, drag the selected item(s) to a Finder location. The "One-Off Download Option" dialog will appear. Select a decoding method or click Cancel.
• select the files/folders to download, and then press the option key. While keeping it held down, double click the selected items. The "One-Off Download Option" dialog will appear. Select a download location and the decoding method to use.

During a download, NetFinder displays this dialog to tell you how far it is in the transfer and how much is left:

You can click the "Stop" button to stop a transfer. If the FTP server supports stopping a transfer, it will be stopped. If the server supports continuing partial files, NetFinder will use its "Partial Files:" setting to determine what to do with the partially downloaded file. See the section 6.5 Downloading Pane in section 6.0 NetFinder preferences for information on this setting.

If the server supports partial files and the partial file is not deleted, then its icon is changed to that of a "partially downloaded file". You can later double click this icon to continue downloading the file from the position it was up to when the transfer was stopped.

TIP: click the "Transfer rate" to toggle the transfer rate between bytes per second, bytes per minute and bytes per hour.

TIP: click the "File remaining" lines to toggle between amount remaining, total amount and amount transferred.

• drag its icon from the desktop of a folder window in the Finder (or drag a folder icon) into a listing window in NetFinder, or
• first, have the destination directory open as the front most window in NetFinder. Then select "Upload..." from the FTP menu. Select the file or folder to upload and click "Upload".

The item will then be uploaded using your settings in the "Uploading Pane" in the "NetFinder Preferences" window. See the section 6.7 Uploading Pane in section 6.0 NetFinder preferences for information on the settings.

During the transfer, a transfer dialog just like the one for downloads will be displayed. It has exactly the same operation and the same usage. See the section above for downloading files for information about how to use the dialog.

If you want to use a different upload method(s) or permissions for a particular upload, there are a few ways to do it:

1. press the option key. While keeping it held down, drag the desired item(s) from a Finder location to a NetFinder window. The "One-Off Download Option" dialog will appear. Select your options and click OK, or click Cancel to cancel.
2. a variation on the first method is to first drag the desired item(s) from a Finder location to a NetFinder window. Then, before releasing the mouse/trackball button, press the option key. While keeping it held down, release the mouse button. The "One-Off Download Option" dialog will appear. Select your options and click OK, or click Cancel to cancel.
3. by using the "Upload..." menu item in the FTP menu. First open a connection to the desired destination and have its listing window as the front most window. Then press and hold down the option key. While keeping it held down, select "Upload..." from the FTP menu (or press command-U). Select the file or folder you want to upload. The "one-off upload options" dialog will appear. Select your options and click OK.

WARNING: You cannot stop an upload and continue from the stopped position at a later time. In other words, this version of NetFinder does not support partial file uploading.

5.5.1 Deleting Files and Directories

There are several ways to delete a file or directory (including its all of the directory's contents). First select the files and directories you wish to delete and then:

1. Drag them to the Trash icon on your desktop. When you do this, you will be asked to confirm the delete operation. Click "Delete" (or use command-D) to delete the selected items.

   TIP: you can bypass this confirmation dialog by option-dragging the items to the Trash icon (that is, press and hold the option key down before dragging the selected items to the Trash icon).

2. Select "Delete Selection..." from the FTP menu. Again, press and hold down the option key to bypass the confirmation dialog
3. Press the "delete" key on your keyboard.

Once you have confirmed the deletion, NetFinder will dim the selected items, preventing you from manipulating them further. It will then delete the selected items one by one.

WARNING: be very careful what you delete! It is very hard (well, more like next to impossible) to recover accidentically deleted files. Unlike your local hard disk where deleted items may be recovered using a disk utility, when an item is deleted on an FTP server, it is almost guaranteed that you will never see it again!

5.5.2 Moving Files and Directories

To move a file or a directory to a new location, select the items you wish to move and drag them to where you want them to go. Yes, it is as simple as that!

You can even move items between windows as long as the two windows have the same login details, that is, same hostname (and port number), same username and same password.

WARNING: some FTP server programs do not support moving files. A good way to check is to refresh the directory listing after you move a file (use the "Refresh Listing" menu command in the FTP menu). For example, tcpConnect4 does not support moving files.

WARNING: many FTP servers do NOT like directory names with one or more spaces in the name. As a result, moving and renaming items with a space in the name may not work.

5.5.3 Renaming Files and Directories

To rename a file or directory, click on the name of the item, wait for it to become editable (or just press the 'return' key to make it editable straight away) and then type the new name for the item. Press 'return' to rename the file.

NOTE: Many servers do not like files with unusual characters in the name, so you should try to avoid these characters whenever possible. Unusual characters include spaces and most of the option-key combinations like option-F for example. Directories and files with spaces in it their names may especially cause the server to not work properly when retrieving directory listing information.

WARNING: Some servers will allow you to rename an item to the same name as another item in the same directory. Try to avoid doing this, because this will result in the existing item being replaced by the item you just renamed! This is especially dangerous if you do this to directories, because the replaced directories' contents will be lost forever!

5.5.4. Creating Directories

To do this, select "New Directory..." from the FTP menu. A new directory called "Untitled_Directory" is created on the FTP site. And just like in the Finder, you will then be able to rename it to what you want (provided you have renaming enabled in the preferences).

5.5.5 Copying and Duplicating Remote Files

To copy a file on a FTP site to another FTP site (or to a directory on the same FTP site), select the files you wish to copy and option-drag them to where you want them to go (either in the same window or to another window). Yes, it is as simple as that!

To duplicate files on a FTP site, select the files you wish to duplicate and select "Duplicate" from the FTP menu.

You can also do remote copying of directories.

WARNING: many FTP servers do NOT like directory names with one or more spaces in the name. As a result, copying items with a space in the name may not work.

5.5.6 Setting Permissions on Remote Files

To set permissions on remote files, you can either:

• select the "Set Permissions..." command from the FTP menu and set the permissions from the dialog that appears, or
• select the "Get Info" command from the FTP menu and change the permissions from the Get Info window. When you close the window, select "Save" to make your changes permanent.

NOTE: of course, you can only set permissions on sites that you have authority to set permissions on. :-) Most sites that you log in to anonymously won't let you do this.

5.5.7 Editing Remote Files with BBEdit

Using BBEdit 4.5.1 or later, you can now edit (text) files on FTP sites. For example, this is useful for quick and easy modifications of web sites.

To edit a file, you can:

• select a file in a Listing window and then select the "Edit in BBEdit" command from the FTP menu or use Command-B.
• select an entry in a bookmark list window and select the "Edit in BBEdit" command from the Bookmarks menu or use Command-B.
• write an AppleScript script that uses the editURL command.

NetFinder can upload the file either everytime you save it or when you finally close the file. When the file is about to be downloaded, NetFinder will display a dialog with 5 options:

• Don't Upload: this file will be uploaded when you close it
• Upload: this file will be uploaded every time you save it
• Never Upload: this file and all files thereafter will be uploaded when each is closed
• Always Upload: this file and all files thereafter will be uploaded when each is saved
• Cancel: cancels the edit operation

There are several editing variations:

• editing a remote file and keeping a local copy. To do this, modify the remote file but save the changes to a file with the same name but in a folder other than the Temporary Items folder. NetFinder will then upload the file when you close it but it will not delete the local copy.
• editing a remote file for the purposes of creating a similar file (but with a different name) on the remote site. To do this, modify the remote file but save the changes to a file with a different name (the name to be used on the remote site). NetFinder will then upload the file using the new name when you close it. If you also save the new file in a folder other than the Temporary Items folder, it will not be deleted after it is uploaded.

WARNING: currently, NetFinder will always upload a saved modified file. If you want to abort the uploading, you must be certain to NOT save any changes to the local copy, that is, just close the file without saving any changes. For obvious reasons, NetFinder will not upload files that are not modified.

1. To create a bookmark to a listing window, press Command-S or select "Save Bookmark" from the FTP menu while that window is the front most window. You will be asked for a name to save the bookmark under. Enter a name and click the Save button.
2. Alternatively, you can drag Window Status icon in the top left corner to the desktop or a folder icon or folder window. You can also drag the icon into a text window to insert the URL to that listing window into the text window.
3. To bookmark items in a listing window, select the an items, then press and hold down the control key, and then drag the selected items to the desktop or a folder icon or a folder window while keeping the control key held down. Release the mouse button when you are at the destination and then release the control key.

   NOTE: if you forget to press the control key, you will end up starting a file transfer instead of creating a bookmark.

TIP: if you use an e-mail program or a text editing program that can accept text being dragged and dropped into it (such as SimpleText), you can quickly create a list of URL's by simply selecting the desired files or folders and dragging them to the text window. This is very handy for compiling a list of URLs for an e-mail letter or a web page.

The saved bookmark files are actually text files that contain a URL. For example, <ftp://archie.au/mac/info-mac/rec/>. As such, you can edit them in your favourite text editor like SimpleText.

WARNING: If you did not log into a site anonymously, that is, you used a username and password, you should create bookmarks to that site with caution, because the bookmark's URL will contain your username and password in plain text (that is, not encrypted!)

TIP: If you use NetFinder with your own FTP account often enough, you can create a bookmark on the desktop and give it a custom icon of, say, a hard disk. This will either (a) confuse you, or (b) make FTP access more transparent. I guess it depends how confused you already are about your desktop - I know I am with mine ;-)

NOTE: Bookmarks can be made for files and folders from the listing window. Each however perform two entirely different functions when you open them. A bookmark of a directory/folder will cause NetFinder to display that directory's contents in a listing window. A bookmark of a file will cause NetFinder to start downloading that file.

About stationary pad bookmarks

NetFinder can save URLs as normal bookmarks or stationary pad bookmarks. The difference is this: when you double click a normal bookmark, the URL saved in it is automatically opened (that is, NetFinder connects to the site, logs you in, and lists or downloads whatever the URL points to); when you double click a stationary pad bookmark, NetFinder reads in the URL and displays it in a fresh "New FTP Connection" dialog and places the insertion point at the end of the path field, ready for you to add to the path. In a sense, the URL in the stationary pad bookmark acts like a template which you modify when you open it.

TIP: you can change a normal bookmark into a stationary pad bookmark and vice versa by selecting the bookmark in the Finder, selecting the Get Info command (in the Finder's File Menu), and clicking the "Stationary pad" checkbox on or off.

To show or hide the Transcript window, use the "Show Transcript" and "Hide Transcript" menu commands in the Windows menu. You can also click its close box to hide it.

NOTE: The transcript window only stores a limited amount of information (about 25K). So if the transcript gets is long, the start of the transcript is deleted from the window. The transcript file, however, always contains the entire transcript since when it was activated.

tell application NetFinder


geturl <URL> [ to <destination spec> ]


Example 1 - lists the rec directory.

tell application NetFinder


geturl "ftp://ftp.info.au/mac/info-mac/rec/"


Example 2 - downloads the file called "netfinder-10.hqx" to the "downloads" folder on "Macintosh HD".

tell application NetFinder


geturl "ftp://ftp.info.au/mac/info-mac/rec/netfinder-10.hqx" to "Macintosh HD:downloads:"


Here is how to store a file using the puturl event:

tell application NetFinder


puturl <source spec> to <URL>


Example - store "myfile.html", located on the disk "RAM Disk:", in the "public-html" directory on ftp.mysite.net.

tell application NetFinder


puturl "RAM Disk:myfile.html" to "ftp://ftp.mysite.net/public-html/"


Here is how to edit a file using the editurl event:

tell application NetFinder


editurl <URL>


• use command-up-arrow to go to the parent directory
• select the "Up To Parent Directory" command from the FTP menu (or use the command-Y shortcut)
• double click a folder icon
• twist open a folder icon's arrow
• select the "Go To Directory..." command from the FTP menu. Enter a directory to open into the dialog that appears. You can enter ".." to go up a level. For example, if you are at "/home/user/vtan/public/", you can use "../ftp" to go to "/home/user/vtan/ftp".

Select "New Bookmark List" or "Open Bookmark List..." from the Bookmarks menu. You can open NetFinder lists, Anarchie lists and Fetch lists.

When the list appears, you can:

• double click an entry (or press return/enter) to open that URL
• select Clear from the Edit menu or press the delete key to delete an entry or separator
• use the "Edit Bookmark" menu command to edit the name, URL and comments. In the Edit Bookmark dialog, you can drag out the URL and drag in URLs from text windows, NetFinder single bookmark files, and Anarchie bookmarks.
• drag and drop entries between lists to copy them or within a list to move it. To copy an entry within a list, option-drag it.

In this window, you can:

• double click an entry (or press return/enter) to continue downloading it. If the file cannot be found where NetFinder last wrote to it, you will be asked to locate the file (this allows you to move partial files)
• select Clear from the Edit menu (or press delete) to delete an entry; you will asked if you really want to delete it

(2) To customise the sounds/speech that NetFinder plays, open the "NetFinder Sound/Speech Data" file with a text editor such a BBEdit or SimpleText and read the instructions inside. You will also need ResEdit to add/remove sampled sounds from the file.

(3) The "NetFinder Preferences" file and the "NetFinder Preferences" folder can both be aliases, and the "NetFinder Startup Items" folder and the items within it can also be aliases. This is handy if you want the same setup on multiple startup disks or for multiple NetFinder applications.