Connection Preferences for FTP

FTP Connection preferences

The preferences in RBrowser have two levels: global and connection specific settings.

Connection preferences apply to a single connection only. This panel is different for each connection protocol. Below is the panel for the FTP protocol. Use the Remote/Connection Preferences/Current Connection (CMD !) menu to bring up the panel.

Connection preferences can be used on a connection even if it is not open. If the connection is not open the new settings will be saved in the preferences file and used next time the connection is used. If you want to edit these preferences before you ever log in, use the "Edit Preferences" button on the login panel.

1. MacBinary File Transfers:

This option is enabled only if the remote host is a Mac running MacOS. The advantages of using MacBinary is outlined in MacOS Issues .
The choices are:
a: Ask (the default) every time a file is transferred, the user will be prompted about using MacBinary encoding for file transfer.
b: Always use MacBinary
c: Never use MacBinary

2. Use Passive FTP:

Normally, the FTP server will connect back to the FTP client to form a data connection. If the client site is firewalled, this may be a problem. With this option you can force RBrowser to make an outgoing data connection instead of an incoming one. Use this option only if the regular way does not work. Default is OFF.

3. FTP port:

The default is 21. Some hosts bind the FTP server to a different port, usually for security reasons. This option will allow you to connect to any specified port.

4. Character Encoding:

You can tell RBrowser what character encoding the remote host uses. This could help the browser to correctly display characters in the upper ASCII set (eg ¥ or ª, etc..)which are used in a lot of languages and interpreted differently on various hosts. The default is Iso Latin 1, which will work for most Sun and HP systems.

5. Open at Startup:

As a convenience, some connections can be auto started when RBrowser starts up. NOTE: passwords are NEVER saved for security reasons. Use this option for connections you always need. Default is OFF.

6. Load Home Directory Only:

This option can be set on an unopened connection. If set, RBrowser will load only the homedirectory and its subdirectories. If you are not interested browsing the entire machine, it is a quick way to get to your files. Default is OFF.

7. Monitors opened documents:

Normally, RBrowser monitors all opened documents to detect if any of them are modified. Upon modification, the modified document is flushed back to the remote system automatically. Since anonymous FTP connections are usually read only, monitoring is turned off by default.

8. Copies symbolic links:

If a symbolic link is encountered, the target of the link is copied, not the link itself. If off, the link is ignored.

9. Maximum Connections:
This is the maximum number of open connections RBrowser will hold simultaneously to the remote host. Holding multiple connections speeds up directory loads and virtually all other operations. Some operations like copying files from one directory to another on the remote host require at least connections because it is done by making two server instances talk to each other.
Please note that some FTP servers change passwords during every login. DO NOT use RBrowser to connect to such systems.

10. Maximum Persistent Connections:
RBrowser will keep some of the above mentioned connections open. This speeds up access to the remote host, since connections will not have to be opened every time the FileViewer is touched.
11. Set:

Saves the new preference settings. Also, all entries are verified (the program paths must exist, etc...).

12. Cancel: keep the old settings.

13. Delete Preferences:

Upon any successful login the preferences files are saved. These files will show up under the Remote/Connection Preferences menu. If the preferences were called up on an unopened connection, this button will erase the file and remove it from the preferences list. Preferences files can be found at ~/Library/RBrowser.

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