# speaking of FTP clients on Mac OS X...



## solrac (May 18, 2002)

no one is satisfied

Fetch sucks (Drag and drop was broken after 10.1.3 until the recent 4.0.2 update which doesn't like my serial number now)

Transmit sucks (still in beta since 1884)

using explorer or a web browser sucks (unanimous vote here, please??)

iFTP sucks and other 3rd party unknown FTP clients suck (They just do, ok?)

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... so why doesn't someone write a GUI for NcFTP?

I've seen GUIs for CLI programs on version tracker... someone should make one for NcFTP!!! Isn't it possible???


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## fryke (May 18, 2002)

Fetch rocks. If it doesn't eat your serial number, why don't you contact Jim? If you ever paid for Fetch and didn't hand out your serial number to certain sources of pirated serial numbers, your serial number should still work. Mine does, for example, no problems since 4.0b2. The drag and drop failure was bad, though, I agree. But it reminded me of how cool Fetch is for FTP. It's *THE* Macintosh FTP client for about a decade now.


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## solrac (May 18, 2002)

yeah i know there will be Fetch lovers coming in this thread now....

ok I used Fetch forever myself, but you have to admit that it can't touch NcFTP. Command Line tools... shit they are always better. They just work.

But this thread is posing the idea of writing a GUI for NcFTP.

If someone did that it would effectively instantly blow fetch out of the water, along with all other FTP clients.

Is anyone working on this? Any ideas? Anyone that can start this?


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## chenly (May 18, 2002)

Anyone who didn't catch the "Wayne's World" reference in the subject line needs to buy the DVDs and watch it again. Fetch is overpriced and under qualified. In the pre-OS X days, it was a huge boon because it did all the heavy lifting in terms of getting FTP onto a system that didn't have the REAL FTP, i.e., the command-line program, already installed. Now that we do, the command-line is the gold standard for power but not for ease of use. That said, try Secure FTP. You can get it from Version Tracker or Download.com. I've tried all the freeware FTP GUIs I can find, and this one's the best of the bunch.


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## TommyWillB (May 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by chenly _
> *...Fetch is overpriced and under qualified...*


I've been using Fetch since 1994 for FREE. I have absolutely no qualms about them finally starting to charge for it now. I owe Fetch a LOT for all of the work it has quietly done for me over the years.

I too think drag&drop in the new Fetch is questionable, and I'd love to have some thin/fast GUI on top of the cli ftp...

Really what I'd like is Apple to just integrate FTP into the Finder. Dragging files to a local folder ought not be any different than a WebDav iTools accout, or an FTP connection...


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## nkuvu (May 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by solrac _
> *ok I used Fetch forever myself, but you have to admit that it can't touch NcFTP. Command Line tools... **** they are always better. They just work.*


Oh, look, a flicker on the Troll-O-Meter.

Instead of just listing a bunch of FTP clients and saying "this barfs" perhaps you could enlighten us on _why_ you think they barf, and what features you think are lacking, and why the CLI is better for FTP, and why you don't just use the CLI if it's already perfect, hmm?  The whole discussion thing works better when it's not just a rant, IMO.

I use Transmit when I want a GUI, and it works just fine for me.  It has everything I want, and nothing I think is too much.  So what if it's beta?  It works just fine.  But that's just me, maybe there's something that you want it to do...

Edit:  I hate seeing *'s in my post.  Note that solrac never said anything barfs.


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## solrac (May 18, 2002)

what????

I listed why each one of them sucks if you read my post dude!! I put one reason in each parentheses.

And every time a regular (GUI) program fails, FTP or anything else, I ALWAYS try command line versions, and guess what, they always work!!

Take last night. I try logging into FTP. Some guy's account that he set up for me. Doesn't work. Tried every GUI FTP prog, nothing worked.

Tried NcFTP on the command line. It paused for a few seconds then bam, listed all the files right away after saying "Data connection timed out, reverting to PORT mode instead of PASV mode"

Aha! That FTP just wasn't working with Passive mode. I go to Transmit and find a checkbox hidden away in the prefs and uncheck it, then Transmit worked also. But the CLI was better because it automatically did that for me, AND it showed me that the opposite of Passive (PASV) mode is PORT mode, which I always wanted to know but never figured out.

So not only does CLI work better it makes you smarter too!!

And so why don't I use the CLI regularly for something like FTP? Because I can't click on one of the items on the list with the mouse to download it. That's what a GUI is for.


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## nkuvu (May 18, 2002)

> Fetch foos (Drag and drop was broken after 10.1.3 until the recent 4.0.2 update which doesn't like my serial number now)
> 
> Transmit foos (still in beta since 1884)
> 
> ...


I'll give you the third, but reasons such as "still in beta" and "they just do" don't count as good explanations in my mind.  But why does Fetch foo?  You never addressed fryke's serial number question.  And if that's the only reason, then I think you have nothing to complain about because you can fix it.

Your last post explained much more accurately, however, so thank you.

Another edit to remove *'s


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## solrac (May 18, 2002)

well beta software in general is to be used as a last resort.

Otherwise why would Panic software decide to call Transmit a beta? There must be issues with it.

More accurately from what I've noticed Transmit will unexpectedly quit every now and then, and also drag and drop downloading fails every now and then.

Fetch would be fine once again when I fix the serial number problem, but it doesn't have everything NcFTP has. Correct me if I'm wrong.

and "they just do" is a perfectly good reason for saying explorer and web browsers suck as FTP clients. C'mon. .... C'mon.        C'mon.

C'mon.

But back to my original question:

Is it possible to make a cocoa GUI for NcFTP, is anyone doing it, or thinking about it, and how hard would it be????


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## scruffy (May 18, 2002)

Have you tried RBrowser light?  The full (pay) version of RBrowser does ftp, scp, and sftp; the light version does just ftp.  It actually acts as a front end to the commandline tools, so it shouldn't screw up if the CLI tools don't.

Anyway, just another one to try.  But hey, if you prefer the commandline version, just use that, quitcherbitchin about the GUI tools.  I am more familiar with the CLI tools myself - actually I mostly just use scp and rsync/ssh anyway.


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## nkuvu (May 18, 2002)

OK, I'll admit it -- I used the Troll-O-Meter comment to get your attention.  It didn't seem like you were reading anything posted by anyone else...

I'd appreciate it if you never call me "dude" again, though.  

And you said "they just do" for iFTP and other 3rd party FTP clients, I gave you credit for web browsers.  I've never had a problem with beta software on the Mac, so I don't see a problem with using it.

But to answer your questions, it may be possible, though I've never seen anything like what you are describing.  The first thing that comes to mind is that it might be a lot easier to get the source code for NcFTP and wrap a GUI around that, but I think that would be a pretty major project.  You may be able to work some sort of kludge together from command line apps (Perl comes to mind (and yes, Perl can do Gui stuff, usually through TK)) but I think it'd be more clunky and error-prone than my first suggestion.


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## solrac (May 18, 2002)

i do love the CLI tools the best, but like I said, how can I quitmebitchin if you can't click on a item in the list to download it?

and what about something like

get file.mp3 ~/Desktop

that should download the file to the desktop no? Nope. It tries to instantly delete the ENTIRE desktop folder and replace it with the downloaded file.

THANK GOD it doesn't do it because the Desktop is a directory. Otherwise I would have formatted my entire hard drive by now by learning CLI tools.

you have to write

get file.mp3 ~/Desktop/file.mp3

So a GUI tool saves this step. It assumes you will want to keep the filename the same. And what if there were 5000 files in the list and the file was called "the best song there ever was you better download this now!!.mp3". Then you'd have to scroll through the list in the terminal and memorize the name or something, and retype it at the command prompt to correctly download it.

Instead of a simple drag and drop.

And I'll bet that the source code for NcFTP is way better than the source code for Fetch and all the other GUI FTP programs.

It soo needs a GUI.

No worries nkuvu. Well I won't go into 3rd party FTP clients such as iFTP. They just do suck, lol!!! RBrowser too. I used that a long time ago and I was just lost. It was not even FTP. It was just weeiirdd. Maybe they've improved it lately. Too bad it seems like a huge project. Someone should do it and claim the throne to the best FTP program on the mac.


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## chenly (May 18, 2002)

OK, we all have our differing opinions about the OS X-native FTP clients, but what about Darwin+X-windows GUI FTP clients? What are out options here?


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## solrac (May 19, 2002)

that was supposed to be the original direction of this thread!!!


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## chenly (May 19, 2002)

Ah...I see that irony is *not* dead. Kudos for picking up my point, solarc. And now, ladies and gentlementhe Darwin + XDarwin FTP clients...


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## Gwailo (May 19, 2002)

I use this cool _free_ German tool called Captin FTP (http://captainftp.xdsnet.de)

It's pretty good, drag `n drop, and featured sufficiently for my needs.

Educational or personal use is free, commercial is $25.

Cool icon too!


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## Dougiamas (May 19, 2002)

yafc (yet another ftp client) is my favourite.  It supports sftp over ssh.

You can get it via fink, or: http://yafc.sourceforge.net/


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## chenly (May 20, 2002)

That's prolly from the same people that did Yet Another News Reader. I'll try that one. CaptainFTP flunked out six months ago.


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## chenly (May 20, 2002)

...yafc isn't really a graphical ftp client. It uses X11, but not much. Back to the drawing board... Steve Jobs: if you're reading this, command your legions of UNIX prgrammers, chained to their desks without external internet access beneath the Apple campus, to build a Cocoa GUI for ftp/sftp as good as Mail. I beseech thee, O omniscient one!


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## Javintosh (May 20, 2002)

When I was looking for an FTP client, I downloaded virtually every client that I could find.

I don't really have problems connecting to FTP sites, but I had my own laundry list of things that I wanted. Eventually, I decided on NetFinder.

There are some things I don't like about NetFinder, but overall I liked this app best. I should note that my #1 was BBEdit integration. This knocked out a lot of FTP right from the start.


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## Dougiamas (May 20, 2002)

> _Originally posted by chenly _
> *...yafc isn't really a graphical ftp client.  *



No, it isn't.  That's one of things I like about it.  

I've been using FTP for 17 years and a few aliases can make things VERY fast.  GUIs are overrated.


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## chenly (May 20, 2002)

To each his/her own. I've decided on Secure FTP for the moment, but check the UNIX forum here--I'm evaluating the interst in a MacOSX.com member-built Cocoa GUI for FTP/SFTP. The URL is below.

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17679


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## GrBear (May 28, 2002)

> _Originally posted by solrac _
> *and what about something like
> 
> get file.mp3 ~/Desktop
> ...


Why not:

ftp> lcd ~/Desktop
ftp> get file.mp3

btw, there's a wonderful program out there that I'm still fighting to get ported to OS X, called Midnight Commander.. not many people know about this program, otherwise more people would be screaming for a port.  If you've ever used Norton Commander on the PC, it's very similar, but does a WHOLE lot more.  It allows you to view ftp servers and file archives (tar, tgz, etc) as just another directory.. major kicks butt.  It's like the swiss army knife of command line utilities - it does everything, and what it can't, you can script into it's menu system.

http://www.gnome.org/projects/mc/


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## chenly (May 28, 2002)

Midnight Commander rocks! That is all.


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## GrBear (May 28, 2002)

The only FTP client I found on the Mac that didn't blow chunks, was Anarchy (which I reg'd).. then it turned into total bloatware around the time it became Interarchy.

Now I just use wget and ncftp instead.. so much for progress.. and yes, I've tried Fetch, Transit, etc.


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## uoba (May 30, 2002)

FTP for OSX has been one of my bones of contention until I got osXigen, one of the few shareware programs I actually bought ($18).

It's on Versiontracker, do a search.


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## nkuvu (May 30, 2002)

I tried osXigen but didn't like it, so didn't mention it.

I use ncftp all the time -- no shareware fees!


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## chemistry_geek (May 30, 2002)

I see no one has mentioned *RBrowser Lite*.  It's located on versiontracker and is FREE.  There is also a PAY version which I do not have and have never used.  I've used RBrowser Lite once for a real FTP transfer, it works.  It also serves as a file browser in Mac OS X that I find quite useful.  It shows ALL the files located in a directory, even invisible ones.


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