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FTP Explorer by Alan Chavis
===========================
Copyright Notice
----------------
Copyright (c) 1995-1996 by Alan Chavis
FTP Explorer is a trademark of Alan Chavis
Release Notes
-------------
THIS IS A BETA RELEASE. THIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS.
PLEASE HELP ME TO IMPROVE THE PROGRAM BY REPORTING ANY PROBLEMS OR
SUGGESTIONS TO:
achavis@ftpx.com
The main objective of FTP Explorer is to provide an FTP client that looks
and feels just like the Windows 95 Explorer interface. Please keep this
in mind while evaluating it.
When released, FTP Explorer will be distributed FREE for home or educational
use. The registration fee for all other uses will be $30.
Distribution Sites
------------------
THE LATEST RELEASE WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE AT:
FTP Explorer Home Site (U.S.):
http://www.ftpx.com
ftp://ftp.ftpx.com/pub/ftpx/ftpx.zip
Other U.S. Sites:
ftp://ftp.mindspring.com/users/ksanders
http://www.magpage.com/~cwagner/
http://www.cjnetworks.com/cgi-bin/vdget.cgi?file=ftpx
Italy:
ftp://ftp.volftp.vol.it/pub/pc/windows/win95/progs/communications/internet/ftp/
Norway:
ftp://powertech.no/users/crossrec/ftpx
Mailing List
-------------
If you would like to subscribe to the FTP Explorer mailing list and be
notified via email about new releases, send email to:
listserv@datacrit.com
with no subject, and put this in the body of the email:
subscribe ftpx-announce
NOTE: DON'T PUT ANYTHING ELSE IN THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE. IF YOUR EMAIL
PROGRAM ALWAYS ADDS A SIGNATURE TO THE END OF EVERY MESSAGE, PUT "end" BY
ITSELF ON THE LINE FOLLOWING THE SUBSCRIBE STATEMENT, LIKE THIS:
subscribe ftpx-announce
end
If you would like to participate in general discussion about FTP Explorer
you may wish to subscribe to the ftpx mailing list instead. Do so by
putting this in the body of the email instead.
subscribe ftpx
If you thought you were on the mailing list, but didn't receive a
notification about the latest build, you may want to subscribe again.
IRC Chat Channel
----------------
I'm frequently available on the EFNET IRC channel: #ftpx
Feel free to join me if you would like to discuss FTP Explorer online.
System Requirements
-------------------
FTP Explorer requires Windows 95 or Windows NT (3.51 or higher, the shell
extension will probably only work on 4.0)
Please note that FTP Explorer requires a 32-bit TCP/IP stack. If you are
using a 16-bit stack you will need to upgrade to a 32-bit stack to use
FTP Explorer.
Disclaimer of Warranty
----------------------
THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
In no event shall the author be held liable for any damages whatsoever,
including without limitation, damages for loss of business profits,
business interruption, loss of business information, or any other loss
arising from the use or inability to use the software.
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
-------------------------
Installation used to be simple. Just put the EXE wherever you wanted and
run it.
Well, now I've gone and added a shell extension and you'll have to do a
little more work until we get a nice install program. (You'd rather have
more features and less bugs over a fancy install anyway right?)
Installation of the shell extension is optional, and is only required if
you want to take advantage of drag and drop downloads and creation of
shortcuts. (You can drag and drop upload without it, and the shortcut
option on the connect dialog will work without it.)
Be advised that because the shell extension runs in the shell's process,
if it crashes it can bring the shell down with it. It seems to work well,
but I can't guarantee that you won't have any problems with it (this *is*
a beta after all). If anyone has any questions of a technical nature
regarding the shell extension and what it's actually doing, feel free to
email me and I'll clue you in.
Installing the shell extension is fairly simple:
1. Copy the FTPXEXT.DLL file to your SYSTEM directory.
2. Open the Windows 95 explorer and go to wherever FTPXEXT.REG is.
(Probably wherever you extracted FTP Explorer to)
3. Right click on FTPXEXT.REG and choose the merge option from the
context menu.
This will add some entries to your registry under the following keys:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{eb9ebda0-b3e7-11cf-81c9-0000c0aa665f}
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{eb9ebda0-b3e7-11cf-81c9-0000c0aa665f}\InProcServer32
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\CopyHookHandlers\FTP Explorer
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Approved
4. You will probably need to restart your system to activate the shell
extension.
If you want to uninstall the shell extension, just delete FTPXEXT.DLL from
your SYSTEM directory and restart. You can remove the entries from your
registry as well if you feel confident you know what your doing, otherwise
you can just leave them there, eventually there will be an uninstall
option that will remove them automatically.
What's New
----------
* Changes in Version 0.00.050 (07/23/96)
- Double clicking a list box entry on the connection dialog is now the same
as selecting it and clicking "Connect".
- Changed email address to: achavis@ftpx.com
- Changed "FTP Explorer Home" sample profile to point to: ftp.ftpx.com
* Changes in Version 0.00.049 (07/21/96)
- Revamped connection dialog. It now has a list box instead of a combo box
to select connection profiles.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the toolbar buttons to remain disabled after
connecting.
* Changes in Version 0.00.048 (07/14/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the "Quick Connect" option to save profiles.
* Changes in Version 0.00.047 (07/13/96)
- Added "Quick Connect" option. This allows you to type in an address or URL
to connect to without having to setup up a connection profile. If the URL
includes a path, the last character must be a slash (/).
* Changes in Version 0.00.046 (07/12/96)
- Fixed a bug that prevented upload dialog from appearing.
* Changes in Version 0.00.045 (07/07/96)
- Fixed a bug that could cause a GPF during the connection sequence.
- Enabled drag and drop uploading from the shell to the tree view pane.
- Improved resume functionality. Resume no longer requires target file
to have the same date/time. Fixed a bug that was causing the target
file to remain opened after a transfer was aborted, causing the resume
not to work properly. This also left a thread active after the program
was closed.
- Downloads initiated with drag and drop now prompt when a resume is
possible.
- Optimized CPU utilization during file transfers. Transfers were using
100% of CPU time, now down to 2-4% on my P133.
* Changes in Version 0.00.044 (07/04/96)
- Program now saves the upload path selected with the upload dialog between
sessions.
- Added "Cache data between sessions" option to connect dialog. If this
option is enabled, all of the directory and file information for the
selected connection profile is cached to disk so it can be reloaded.
This allows a site to be browsed without actually having to connect first.
Any operation that requires a connection will establish a connection
automatically. The "Refresh" command can be used to force a folder
to be updated.
- Removed "Automatically re-connect" option from connection options page. The
program now always attempts to re-connect whenever it is necessary.
* Changes in Version 0.00.043 (07/03/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the directory to not be refreshed properly
after a rename. This bug was created by the bug fixes in 040. Jeez!
* Changes in Version 0.00.042 (07/03/96)
- The Select All hotkey (CTRL-A) was not working. Fixed.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the transfer dialog to pop up with every
new file when transferring a group of files via the primary connection.
- Fixed a bug where the upload dialog was not allocating enough memory
to handle large multiple file selections.
* Changes in Version 0.00.041 (07/03/96)
- Fixed a bug that was created by the fixes in 040 that caused the search
animation on the list view to continue after the list was finished
refreshing.
* Changes in Version 0.00.040 (07/03/96)
- Fixed a bunch of bugs that were causing the views not to be refreshed if
a menu was pulled down, or if the window was being resized. This should
also fix the problems related to the tree view folders staying green after
they have completed refreshing.
* Changes in Version 0.00.039 (07/02/96)
- Fixed bug that was causing a page fault if you hit the "Cancel" button
while connecting.
* Changes in Version 0.00.038 (07/01/96)
- Enabled recent file list.
- The first fix for the "FTP Log" pane didn't work, so there is now a registry
setting (MaxFtpLogSize) that determines the maximum number of chars that it
will hold.
- Context menus now reflect current status properly. (i.e. List view
type, auto arrange, etc.)
- Modified password dialog so that login name can also be specified if the
password is left blank in the connection dialog.
* Changes in Version 0.00.037 (06/30/96)
- Moved options dialog into it's own thread. This should fix some problems
that occurred when the options dialog was opened while connecting.
* Changes in Version 0.00.036 (06/29/96)
- Fixed a bug where if a folder was deleted, it was not removed from
the tree view properly.
- Added the ability to upload entire directory structures.
- Added the ability to download entire directory structures. Unfortunately,
you can no longer drag drop a folder to create a shortcut. You can still
create shortcuts to folders via the file and context menus. I'm looking
for a work around for this.
- Fixed a bug that was causing directories to not be parsed properly. This
usually made the permissions show up in the filenames column.
- Added a facility to assist me in supporting various servers. If you run
into a directory that is not listed properly, look in the folder that the
program uses for temp files and you should find a file named "dirlist.txt".
Email this file to me and it will help me to debug the problem. You must
grab this file before listing any other directories because it is overwritten
every time.
- Fixed a bug where the "FTP Log" pane was filling up after which it not longer
worked. The "FTP Log" pane should now hold up to 4294967295 bytes. Hopefully
this will be sufficient.
- Fixed a conflict with the DELETE key where it was causing the "File Delete"
dialog to appear if you used it while renaming a file.
- The "Download To" dialog now remembers the last path that was selected so that
you don't have to browse for the path when downloading multiple files. You
still have to hit "Save" for each selected file.
- Links that contain periods are now treated as files. I'm still going to add
a menu option to allow the user to change this manually on a per link basis.
* Changes in Version 0.00.035 (06/06/96)
- Added "Cancel" command to "Tools" menu and toolbar. This command
will cancel all pending commands and issue an FTP abort command to
the server. It may not work in all cases. Please let me know if
you have problems with it and what the circumstances were.
- Added "Resume" feature. Program will now prompt to resume download
if file exists in target directory and is same date/time and smaller
size.
* Changes in Version 0.00.034 (06/04/96)
- Changed "Save As" menu options to "Download To".
- Added support for Mac "NetPresenz" server. (Tested with v4.0.1)
* Changes in Version 0.00.033 (06/04/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the columns in the details view to be
sized to 0 width if program was closed in any other view.
- Fixed a bug where program was unable to start fpArchie if fpArchie
was located in a "long filename" path (i.e. \Program Files).
- Fixed a bug where if the folder was empty, the tree view icon stayed
green after the LIST command was complete.
- Fixed a bug where certain shell functions (such as changing wallpaper)
were performed while connected, a blocking thread was not allowing the
function to complete.
- Fixed a bug where transfer progress dialog was not appearing on top
of the main window properly.
- Added code to check for insufficient disk space before a file is
downloaded.
- Fixed a bug when "Quick Viewing" files that "Quick View" does not
recognize where the file would be deleted before quick view could
open it.
- Added percentage complete indicator to transfer progress dialog's
caption.
- Added "Port" option to connect dialog.
- Enabled transfer progress dialog for non-background transfers.
- Enabled non-background uploading.
- Added "Transfer Dialog Threshold" option to transfer options page.
This options controls how large a file has to be before the transfer
progress dialog is displayed. When transferring many small files,
displaying the transfer dialog can degrade performance slightly.
NOTE: The transfer dialog is always displayed for background
transfers.
- Added option to connection options page to hide files that begin
with a period.
* Changes in Version 0.00.032 (06/01/96)
- Fixed some problems with date/time display on certain VMS systems.
* Changes in Version 0.00.031 (06/01/96)
- Program no longer terminates until last active transfer is either
completed or cancelled.
- Fixed bug which prevented "Small Icons" or "List" list view settings
from being restored between sessions.
- Program now saves column width settings for list details view. Sorry,
still no way to change the order of the columns. :(
- Fixed a bug related to background transfers where if password was
entered via password prompt dialog, the password was not available
to the background transfer so it couldn't log in.
- Fixed bug on VMS servers where rename command was not working.
- Improved support for multiple drives.
* Changes in Version 0.00.030 (05/30/96)
- Fixed some problems with server reporting "UNKNOWN Type: L8" in
response to SYST command. (listserv-ftp.dartmouth.edu)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the SYST command to be issued every
time a list command was issued.
- Improved VMS support. Program now remembers current drive info.
Please note that to use the "Go to" command on a VMS system, you
currently have to specify the path with unix style slashes instead
of VMS style paths. (i.e. drive:[pub.misc] becomes drive:/pub/misc)
- Fixed a bug that was preventing larger files from being transferred
at all unless they were transferred in the background.
- "Go to" command now treats path relative to the current directory.
If you enter a path that doesn't start with a slash "/" character,
or a drive specification, then it will append it to the current
directory and attempt to change to that directory.
* Changes in Version 0.00.029 (05/29/96)
- Added "Sequential or Simultaneous" option to transfer options page.
This options allows the user to specify whether to transfer queued
items sequentially, or to start multiple threads for simultaneous
transfers. There is also an option to specify the maximum number
of logins.
- Moved english resources back into main executable to facilitate
development. The program will now look for "ftpxres.dll" and use
it if it finds it, otherwise it will use the built in resources.
If you are using english resources, you can delete the file
"ftpxres.dll" that was provided with earlier builds. Localized
DLL's for Norway, Russia, and France are under development.
* Changes in Version 0.00.028 (05/28/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the program to consume large quantities
of system resources when listing large directories. (i.e. Microsoft's
/Softlib/MSLFILES).
- Program now saves the state of the toolbar and status bar between
sessions.
- Fixed some problems with a Silicon Graphics server.
* Changes in Version 0.00.027 (05/27/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the "Go to" command to not work if you
tried to go to a folder you hadn't been to before.
- Fixed a bug that was causing folders not to be listed completely if
the program encountered a "process" file.
- Fixed a bug that was causing a thread not to terminate when the
program was closed. This caused the program to show up in the task
list once for every time it was executed.
- Moved program resources to a separate DLL (ftpxres.dll) to facilitate
localization.
- Transfer progress dialog was only showing download animation whether
uploading or downloading. Fixed.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the "Search" animation to continue
playing after disconnecting.
- Added a line to the .reg file for the shell extension to allow it
to install the extension properly under Windows NT.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the list command to "hang" when listing
folders with a lot of entries.
- Fixed some more problems with specific server types.
* Changes in Version 0.00.026 (05/25/96)
- Dates should now be displayed appropriately for the current locale.
- Connection attempts setting must now be greater than 0.
- Added "Go to" button to toolbar. The bitmap for this might change
but "Open" seemed sort of appropriate.
* Changes in Version 0.00.025 (05/25/96)
- Fixed a bug where the TEMP directory cleanup routine was detecting the
"." and ".." entries as files.
* Changes in Version 0.00.024 (05/23/96) (NOT RELEASED)
- Added support for VMS FTP sites. It's not perfect, but it works (I think).
Please let me know how it works for you. I tested it against a VMS
MultiNet V3.4 system (ftp.iup.edu). NOTE: VMS seems to use some weird
numbers for the file sizes it reports, so the sizes are not very accurate.
Also, I was unable to test uploading to this server, so if anyone has
access to a VMS system that you can upload to, please test this and let
me know if it works for you.
- Fixed a bug where the tree view was not being refreshed sometimes if the
corresponding folder was opened from the list view.
- Threshold for background transfers now defaults to 50k.
* Changes in Version 0.00.023 (05/22/96) (NOT RELEASED)
- Revamped Drag and Drop routines. A shell extension is now required
to enable download drag and drop functions. This was necessary to be able
to queue files for download and then download them in the background.
The program will be unable to perform the drop operation if the shell
extension is not installed, and it will probably create a folder named
"ftpxdrop" in whatever folder you dropped the item into. Hopefully
I'll be able to improve this and be able to detect whether the shell
extension is installed in the future.
Also, you can only drop files on shell windows. If you try to drop a
file on an application, you'll get an error message. I'm looking into
a work around for this.
- You can now select multiple items and drag them out of FTP explorer and
drop them on a shell window. Selected files will be queued for download,
and shortcuts will be created for any selected folders.
* Changes in Version 0.00.022 (05/19/96) (NOT RELEASED)
- Added hot keys:
F2 = Rename
F5 = Refresh
CTRL-G = Go To
- Totally revamped FTP subsystem to run in a separate thread
and to "Queue" commands for sequential execution.
This allows the user to change directories in rapid succession
and the FTP subsystem will eventually catch up, refreshing the
directories in the order that they were requested. This should
make the user interface much more responsive overall.
The tree view now reflects the status of folders that are being
refreshed. Folders are gray as before when they have not been
listed yet and now they turn green while they are pending an
update, and finally turn yellow when the refresh process is
complete.
- The "FTP Log" view now has it's own thread. This was necessary
to allow any of the various threads to post log updates and for
the log to remain sequential. When you queue up alot of actions
the log thread may lag behind, but it should eventually catch up.
- The tree view should now properly update itself when folders are
added, deleted, or renamed.
- Fixed a bug where the "FTP Log" view size was not always being
restored properly between sessions.
- The "Byte Counter" on the status bar now increments in 128 byte
intervals. Previously it only incremented in 1024 byte intervals
and it had a bug that made it reset itself which made it useless
for the most part.
- Fixed several bugs related to logging in to "Home" directories.
Previously, if the "Initial Dir" setting for a given profile was
left blank, FTP Explorer would attempt to change to the root of
the server, which caused problems on some servers. Now, it just
goes wherever the server takes it and determines where it is once
it gets there.
- Finally got around to fixing the small icons! Someone tell Microsoft
to fix and document ExtractIconEx()!
- Added "Search" animation to "List" view when folder is being
refreshed.
- Multiple selection delete is now functional.
- Rename command now de-selects all selected items except for the
focused item. (This is how the Windows 95 explorer works)
- Reworked the description parsing routine to be more intelligent
when parsing index files. Please report any sites that are not
parsed correctly.
- Debugged shutting down while the program is busy communicating with
the server. It should be much more robust now.
- Added code to trim leading and trailing whitespace characters off of
"Host", "Login", and "Initial Path" values. The program will now also
trim trailing slash "/" characters off of the initial path value if
it is not a single slash. Let me know if this causes problems for
anyone.
- Added "Remember" option to tools menu. This stores the current folder's
path to the current profile's "Initial Path" value.
- Added options to "Paths" options page to automatically clean up the temp
dir at shutdown. By default the program warns the user before deleting files from
the temp dir to prevent accidental deletions. This warning can be disabled
if desired.
- If you "QuickView" a file, a low priority thread is launched to watch
for the "QuickView" program to end. When "QuickView" ends, the temporary
file is deleted. If you quit FTP Explorer before quitting "QuickView",
the file will not be deleted automatically, but the file should be
deleted eventually by the temp file cleanup routine if it is enabled.
- Added option to warn if excessively large file is selected for "QuickView"
or "Open". This option can be configured via the "Transfer" options page.
- Added "Find" option to the "Tools" menu to launch fpArchie if it is installed.
If it is not installed, a dialog box will appear that will prompt the user
to connect to a site so they can download fpArchie.
- Moved "Connect" and "Disconnect" menu options to the "Tools" menu to be more
consistent with the Windows 95 explorer interface.
- Added "Download" option to "File" and context menus, and added a "Download"
button to the tool bar. This option downloads the selected files to the
default download path. The user is prompted if the file(s) already exist.
- Added "Upload" option to "File" menu and added an "Upload" button to the
toolbar. This option presents the user with a "File Open" dialog box to
allow them to select files to be uploaded to the current folder. Multiple
files can be selected.
- Transfers are now "Queued" and handled by a separate thread, which
initiates a separate FTP connection automatically. This allows the user
to connect to a site, queue up a few transfers, then connect to a different
site and queue up some more. The transfer thread will process each transfer
in the sequence it was queued.
- Added "Transfer Manager" option to the "Window" menu. This window displays
the status of queued transfers. (It will eventually allow for control over
the transfers, such as cancelling, re-submitting, etc.)
- Fixed bug on "Transfer Progress" dialog where progress meter was freaking
out when large files were transferred. Please report any bugs related to
this.
- Disabled "New Folder" menu option when not connected.
- Program now accepts FTP URLs on the command line. Connections via URLs
are not saved as connection profiles, although I may add an option for this
later. URLs must end in a slash (/) character because the program trims
all characters beyond the last slash to eliminate filenames.
- Program now uses shell API to aquire the correct path to the
"Desktop". This should solve some problems for international users
whose "Desktop" is not called "Desktop".
- Added "Select All" and "Invert Selection" options to the "Edit"
menu. These currently only affect the "List" view.
- Browse buttons on "Paths" options page now use the Windows 95
ShBrowseForFolder() routine to present a better looking browse
dialog box.
- Decided this was a bigger project then initially thought. :)
* Changes in Version 0.00.021 (05/06/96)
- Program now saves splitter positions between sessions.
(This also saves the "FTP Log" option setting on the
view menu)
- Program now optionally saves window size, position
and state (minimized, restored, or maximized) between
sessions. Size and position are only saved if the
program is closed from a restored (not minimized or
maximized) state.
- Fixed bug that occured when window was sized too small.
- Added toolbar button to toggle "FTP Log" view on and off.
- Added option to "Include description bar for right and
left panes" to "Options" dialog to allow toggling the
"All Folders" and "Contents of ..." captions on and off.
- Fixed bug on "General Options" page where "Index file size"
edit control was not disabled initially if "Autoload
Descriptions" was turned off.
- Fixed bug where the "Sort by type" option was not working
correctly.
- Fixed bug that prevented use of backspace key while renaming
files because backspace was defined as an accelerator key
for moving to the parent directory. Added code to handle
backspace key separately and only when not editing a list item.
- Added "File/New/Folder" option to "File" and context menu to
allow subdirectory creation.
- Browse buttons on "Paths" options page are now functional.
- Program can now import "CuteFTP" site lists (TREE.DAT). This
has only been tested with CuteFTP v1.4 Final Beta 7 32-bit.
Please let me know if you run into problems with other versions.
- Program no longer echos password to "FTP Log" view for security
reasons.
- Program will now prompt for a password if the login name is
anything other than "anonymous" and no password is specified
for the profile. Added an option to the "Connection" options
page to disable this. This can also be disabled directly from
the dialog that prompts for the password.
- Fixed bug where anonymous login password (email address) values
were not updated for each profile if the email address was
changed. The connect dialog now reads the password value
directly from the email address value if the "Anonymous" option
is selected.
- Passwords stored in the registry are now encrypted. The program
should automatically encrypt any existing passwords the first
time the new version is executed.
- Added "Save As" button to toolbar.
- Removed "Cut", "Copy", "Paste", and "Undo" buttons from toolbar.
These may come back in a future build when I make them do something.
These options still exist under the "Edit" menu, but don't do
anything.
- Program now prompts user to create sample connection profiles if
no profiles exist. If you have any really good sites that you
feel should be part of the samples, let me know.
- Added a prompt that warns the user that the email address is
empty and will launch the options dialog if allowed to. This
is intended to point new users in the right direction, and will
only appear once. After that, you're on your own. :)
* Changes in Version 0.00.020 (04/24/96)
- Initial public beta release.
* Changes in Version 0.00.019 (04/19/96)
- Fixed bug where "Options" dialog was not saving changes
to the "Connection" page.
- Added "Import" option to "Tools" menu to allow importing
connection info from WS_FTP. Other formats will be supported
in the future.
- Added "Byte Counter" indicator to the status bar to give
some feedback when downloading directory contents.
- Program now attempts to retain creation original date
and time for downloaded files.
* Changes in Version 0.00.018 (04/18/96)
- Fixed the description feature. It's been broken for a while
and I just noticed it!
* Changes in Version 0.00.017 (04/17/96)
- Added icons to the transfer dialogs.
- Changed drag and drop operations from list view to work as
"move" operations so that the TEMP dir is cleaned up
automatically.
- Added code to the "Connect" dialog to set the focus to the
profile name combo box after an "Add" or "Remove" operation.
- Fixed bug that was caused by fix for older Windows NT FTP
servers. Newer NT servers list directory contents differently.
- Fixed bug caused by code attempting to update transfer dialog
after the dialog was closed.
* Changes in Version 0.00.016 (04/09/96)
- Program now detects if "Quick View Plus" is installed and
reflects this in the "File" menu and context menus. Right
now I'm doing this manually, but I hope to add support for
any installed "Shell Extension Context Menu Handlers" in
the future. For more info about "Quick View Plus" check
out http://www.inso.com
- Added "Attempts" and "Retry Delay" options to "Connect"
dialog to allow customizing these settings on an individual
connection basis. These settings default to the settings
from the "Options" dialog.
* Changes in Version 0.00.015 (04/08/96)
- Fixed some bugs on the "Connect" dialog. If you added a
new profile, or deleted a profile, the "Profile Name"
combo box was not being reloaded. If you changed the name
of the current profile, and then saved it or selected a
different profile from the combo box, the combo was not
updated with the new name properly.
- Fixed a bug with the "File" context menu where the "Save As"
and "Open" options were not functioning properly.
* Changes in Version 0.00.014 (04/07/96)
- Fixed a bug that was causing the program to lock up or GPF
if you opened the file menu without being connected. This
crept into 013 when I added the "Create Shortcut" option
to the file menu.
* Changes in Version 0.00.013 (04/07/96)
- Changed "Autoload File Descriptions" to default to on.
- Added "Autoload File Descriptions" size limit to "Options"
dialog. This was previously hard coded to 50k.
- Implemented asynchronous host lookup call to prevent
non-responsiveness during connect sequence. Program was
blocking on host lookups before and would not respond
or repaint itself until the host name was resolved.
- "Options" dialog is now a tabbed dialog with "General",
"Paths", and "Connection" pages.
- Fixed several problems with date and time field. Program
now displays appropriate date and time for current locale.
Also, this fixed a problem with sorting by date.
- Changed the transfer animations.
- Fixed a memory leak that was occurring when a download was
cancelled.
- Changed "bps" indicators to read "bytes/sec" for more clarity.
- Fixed another bug that was causing Log pane to scroll to the
right for long lines.
- Worked on optimizing download throughput. Program is now
performing at least as well as other popular FTP clients.
- Added "transfer complete" and "transfer incomplete" notices
to FTP log stream. The "transfer complete" notice also displays
throughput information.
- Added "Create Shortcut" option to "File" and context menus to
create a shortcut to a folder on the desktop for the currently
selected folder.
- Added "Connection Retry" feature. This allows user to configure
the number of times to try to connect, and the number of seconds
to wait between each try.
- Added "Enable sound" option to "General" options page. This
allows the user to enable or disable any sounds generated by the
program.
- Added sounds to connection progress. Program will now play the
default "Ding" sound on connecting, and the default "Asterisk"
sound when a connection attempt fails. (The specific sounds
are configurable via the control panel.)
I'll be adding additional sounds in the future. Please let me
know where you would like to see sounds added.
- Added "Automatically reconnect" option to "Connection" page.
This option is currently disabled, but when completed it will
allow the program to automatically reconnect if the connection
fails.
* Changes in Version 0.00.012 (04/05/96)
- Added keyboard accelerators to "Connect" and "Options"
dialogs.
- Added "Window" menu to allow quick switching between Tree,
List, and Log views.
- Added "Vertical Split" and "Horizontal Split" options to the
"Window" menu to allow maniplating splitters via the keyboard.
- Added confirmation dialog for delete operations.
- Changed "Name" caption on "Connect" dialog to "Profile Name"
and "Host" caption to "Host Address" for greater clarity.
- Fixed bug where context menu initiated by Shift-F10 was not
properly positioned over selected item.
- Changed context menus so that they are more context sensitive
depending on what is selected.
- Added "Save Log As" option to file menu. This allows the FTP
log file to be saved.
- Removed trailing line feed chars from FTP Log view entries.
This eliminates that annoying blank line that used to appear
at the bottom of the Log view.
- Added "Folder Shortcuts". You can now drag folders to the
desktop or shell windows to create a shortcut to the FTP site!
I plan to add the ability to drag folders from the Tree view
as well.
- In implementing the shortcut feature I added a command line
option as follows: //Profile Name!/Initial/Path The command
line option must start with two slashes, followed by the profile
name. The initial path is optional, but if included, must be
separated from profile name by an exclamation point. If a path
is not specified, then the profile's default path is used. If
this syntax ends up being too confusing, I'll probably change it.
- Added "Shortcut" button to "Connect" dialog to provide an easy
way to add a shortcut for the profile to the desktop.
- Added an option to automatically highlight the last line in the
FTP log.
- Added the rest of the possible "Sort" options to the "Arrange Icons"
menus.
* Changes in Version 0.00.011 (04/04/96)
- Changed connect dialog so bytes transferred is displayed as
"(xxx of xxx bytes transferred)".
- Fixed tooltips on delete and properties toolbar buttons.
- The main program icon got hosed when I added the "Go to"
feature. It's now been changed back to the correct icon.
- Added code to make the TAB key cycle through the Tree, List,
and Log views.
- Added code to auto select the first item in the List view
when it is loaded.
- Fixed bug that was causing Tree and List views to not regain
the focus when the program lost and regained focus.
- Changed the transfer buffer sizes to 1024 bytes. This seems
to help the throughput some, but there's probably some more
tuning to do to find the right size. This may become an option.
* Changes in Version 0.00.010 (04/03/96)
- Fixed bug in connect dialog where garbage was sometimes being
appended to strings stored in the registry.
- Fixed bug where if invalid initial path was specified in the
connect dialog, it would still be added to the tree view.
- Password field on "Connect" dialog now hides the password
based on whether or not "Anonymous" is selected.
- Backspace key now changes to parent directory.
- Fixed bug where tree view was not properly tracking the
current directory when CD was changed via method other
than via tree control.
- Added "Go to" command on new "Tools" menu to allow user
to go to any specified directory.
- Upload dialog now has same indicators as download dialog.
(i.e. file size, bytes transfered, etc.)
- Added "Bps" (bytes per second) indicator to transfer dialogs
* Changes in Version 0.00.009 (04/01/96)
- Implemented background downloading. This works by opening
a new FTP connection, so it takes a little while before it
starts up. Background transfers are only functional for
"Save As" and are not available for "Open" and "Quick View"
commands due to dependancy issues. Eventually I may come
back to this and try to make it work somehow.
- Added option to "Options" dialog to allow user to specify
the file size threshold for background transfers.
- Added code to release the mouse capture after a drag
drop operation to fix bug where mouse was not working during
download initiated by drag drop.
- Added "Add" and "Save" buttons to "Connect" dialog to add and
save entries.
- The "Remove" button on "Connect" dialog is now functional.
- Added filename being transferred to download dialog caption.
- Added file size to filename label on download dialog.
- Added bytes transferred status indicator to download dialog.
- Fixed the sorting routine for the list view. It's been broken
since I added the "Description" column. If you clicked on the
size column, it sorted by description. Also added the rest of
the columns to the sort routine so you can now sort by
"Permissions", "Owner" and "Group".
- Added "Properties" dialog for item detail information.
- Fixed a bug that was making the tree view folders turn yellow
before they had been actually opened. This bug was also slowing
down the process of filling the tree view.
* Changes in Version 0.00.008 (03/28/96)
- Program now saves the list style to the registry so that it
is restored the next time you run it.
- Added an option to specify the default download path to the
options dialog. This only effects the "Save As" command.
- The "FTP Log" pane is now read only. A side effect of this
is that it turned gray. I'm not sure if I like it or not so
let me know what you think and maybe I'll force it back to
white.
- Added an "FTP Log" option to the view menu to easily toggle
the "FTP Log" pane on and off. Actually all it does is resize
it.
- The "FTP Log" pane now attempts to remain the same size when
the main window is resized.
- You can now cancel a connection attempt by selecting "disconnect"
from the file menu or clicking the "disconnect" icon on the toolbar.
- Fixed the "connect" icon on the toolbar so that it is disabled
during connection attempts.
- Removed horizontal scroll bar from "FTP Log" pane.
- Transfer dialog is now closing the data socket when the cancel
button is selected. This is just a quick fix to kill the transfer,
you will probably have to disconnect.
- Changed the toolbar icons for "connect" and "disconnect".
- The options dialog's caption is now "Options" instead of "Dialog" - DUH.
- Fooled around with the main icon a little. Whadaya think?
* Changes in Version 0.00.007 (03/26/96)
- Program now uploads files dropped on it to the current directory.
- Added quick fix for crash if you tried to close the program
while it was busy doing something.
- Now loading version info from resource info.
- Changed EXE name to ftpx.exe.
- Added my email address to the about dialog.
- Added "initial path" option to connect dialog.
- Fixed bug related to new "initial path" option where tree was
not working properly if the parent directory had not been listed
before.
Known Problems
--------------
1. The file formats for the INDEX files on the various FTP sites vary
widely, so you can help by using the "Autoload File Descriptions"
feature and reporting any problems you have with it. Currently the
program only looks for INDEX, INDEX.TXT, and 00_INDEX.TXT, so if you
find other filenames or ones that don't load in correctly email them
to me. Don't forget to include the address of the server that you
get them from so I can test the fixes.
2. Cut, Copy, Paste, and Undo options don't do anything. These may go away.
3. There are some problems related to dial up connections when the program
is used to initiate a winsock connection. If the connection attempt
times out before winsock gets connected. You have to either connect
winsock manually or shut down FTP Explorer and restart. For now the
best solution is to connect your winsock manually before attempting
to connect to a site with FTP Explorer. I'll be doing some testing
soon to try to eliminate this problem.
4. If you drag a group of files to the desktop, you sometimes have to hit
F5 to refresh the desktop for them to show up. I have a fix for this
that I'll be implementing soon.
5. If you enter an invalid path via the "Go to" command, it will be created
in the tree view anyway.
6. The program does not react when the server closes the control connection
when a timeout occurs. Eventually I'll probably add some sort of auto
reconnect option to handle this.
7. Resume is always attempted for drag and drop downloads.
8. The program only warns about overwriting the initial directory when
transferring complete directory structures. I'll add overwrite prompting
in a future build.
Planned Changes and Additions
-----------------------------
These are not prioritized. If you want to encourage any of these, send
your vote in via the ftpx mailing list.
1. Will probably add an option to the menu structure to allow you to
load in an INDEX file manually, so you don't have to wait every time
you change directories.
2. Add drag drop support from list view to tree view.
3. Add some sort of notification when an action fails, i.e. if the user
doesn't have rights to rename a file. This would be useful if you
have the "FTP Log" pane sized small enough where you can't see what's
going on.
4. A help file and an install program is on the way.
5. Add a menu option to change a link so that it is treated as a file,
and possibly an option to change the default to treat all links as
files.
6. Add context menus to the Tree view.
7. Might add a menu option to expand and collapse tree view branches.
8. Add option to allow changing file permissions from properties page.
9. Add proxy and firewall support.
10. Might add some sort of directory synchronization mechanism to allow
transferring only files that have changed. This is way down the
road!
11. Add option to change the "FTP Log" font.
12. Might add an option to allow selection of files via wildcards.
13. Add internationalization features. If anyone would like to translate
the strings I use to another language, I'll be glad to utilize them.
14. Add options to allow customization of the order of the list view.
15. Add some sort of capability to move files from one remote folder
to another.
16. Add an uninstall option.
17. Add an option to disable the prompt that asks you if you are sure
you want to delete a profile from the connection dialog.
18. Add the ability to delete files when you drag them to the recycle
bin.
19. Add an option to launch another instance of FTP Explorer.
20. Add "Sounds" page to the options dialog to allow for custom
sounds.
21. I've looked into adding the local drives into the tree view, and
it is also possible to integrate FTP Explorer with the Windows 95
shell. These would both require major changes to the fundamental
architecture of the program, so I've decided to finish what I've
started and release a stable, full featured stand alone product
before delving into anything like this.
22. Add the ability to drag files from one FTP Explorer instance to
another.
23. Make the goto-dialog store directories only when pressing save.
24. Add option to configure file extensions that always download as
ascii or binary.
25. Choose directory option for creating shortcuts.
26. Add the ability to create shortcuts to remote files so that they
can be downloaded with a single double click on the shortcut.
27. Add a "Treeview" toggle to the "View" menu.
28. Add the ability to specify different default download paths for
each connection profile.
29. Add the ability to disable auto-refresh of directories after uploads.
30. Allow filters to be specified such as *.txt and only display/download
files that match the filter.