RBrowser Site Preferences for FTP

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FTP Site Preferences

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

Site preferences apply to a single site only. This panel is different for each connection protocol. Below is the panel for the FTP protocol. Use the RBrowser/Site Preferences (<COMMAND>-) menu to bring up the Preferences Panel.

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

General Tab:

Character Encoding:

You can tell RBrowser which 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 UTF-8.

Open at Startup:

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

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 sites are usually read only, monitoring is turned off by default.

Load Home Directory Only:

This option can be set on an unopened site. If set, RBrowser will load only the home folder and its subfolders. If you are not interested in browsing the entire machine, this is a quick way to get to your files. Default is OFF.

Site Name:

Every site can have a meaningful name assigned by the user. This name will appear on the top of the Site's viewers, also if the GO and Preferences menus.

Limits Tab:

Maximum Connections:

This is the maximum number of open connections RBrowser will hold simultaneously to the remote site. Holding multiple connections speeds up folder loads and virtually all other operations. Some operations like copying files from one folder to another on the remote host require at least two 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.

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 File Viewer is touched.

Permissions for New Empty Files:
Files created on the remote host with the File/New Empty File command will get these permissions. Entry should be in the 0655 or rwxr-xr-x format.

File Transfer Tab:

MacBinary File Transfers:

The Macbinary format is widely used to transport macintosh files in a format that preserves the meta data, like resource fork, finder info etc.. about a file. The various issues of using MacBinary are 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

File Transfer Mode:

Binary: the default. In this mode the transferred files are not touched at all, they are transferred exactly as they are. If you work with UNIX text files (like those saved by TextEdit) this option is what you need.
Automatic: RBrowser will try to figure out based on type/creator info and filename extensions which files in text, and upload/download those in text mode.
Text: Upload/download all files in text mode.
Text mode means that RBrowser will translate the line endings to CRLF on upload and translate them back to CR (the Mac line ending) on download.

Add .bin to filename if MacBinary is downloaded:

Some macbinary-enabled FTP servers (like Rumpus) will serve files for download in macbinary format, but they do not add .bin to the filename. With this option on, RBrowser will add the .bin, so decoders (like Stuffit) will recognize and decode the file correctly. This option is On by default.

Firewall Tab:

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 Auto, in this case RBrowser will find the best way to connect. It is the recommended setting for new connections, as well as if the connection worked in the past but now has hanging problems.

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.

Buttons on the bottom:

Set:

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

Cancel: keep the old settings.

Delete Preferences:

Upon any successful login the preferences files are saved. These files will show up under the Remote/Site 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 in ~/Library/Application Support/RBrowser/.