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DanUk2003 · Oct 27, 2003, 08:06 AM

I've just got Panther, and FTP in the Finder still ONLY supports read - it will NOT let you write to FTP servers by itself.

Does anyone know a work-around? Apart from using Terminal or getting a 3rd party app....

Terri · Oct 27, 2003, 08:21 AM

Personally I think this sucks. Maybe in 10.4?

swiz · Oct 27, 2003, 08:36 AM

This is ridiculous, Ive been waiing for this since the first X release. I think the FTP feature is totally useless without writing capabilities.

Souljah · Oct 27, 2003, 08:54 AM

damnit..and here I was all weekend thinking how great Panther was for easy Finder FTP access...without checking write access.

Now to set up Kerberos Fetch

Kristoff · Oct 27, 2003, 09:32 AM

pretty lame.

What's the point again? I mean, Safari provides a UI for read only FTP.

Windows has had this for years.

darcybaston · 09:55 AM

Yup and Amigas had it in the earlier 90s with Opus Magellan. You could ftp to two servers in finder/GUI windows and drag and drop data from server to the next so that one server could upload to another and skip your computer altogether.

http://www.gpsoft.com.au/magellan/Ma...2.html#OpusFTP

Just found a screen capture of a more colorful example : http://www.gpsoft.com.au/Reviews/images/ScreenGrab.jpg

For historical amusement.

sniffer · Oct 27, 2003, 10:24 AM

Yeah. Write able FTP and sFTP (ssh+FTP) would have been awesome..

dr. zoidberg · Oct 27, 2003, 10:36 AM

hmm, but didn�t it work in some of the betas?? in any case, this is really ridiculous. i would understand if they would skip ftp and directly move to sftp/ssh. but the likeliness of this? well, let�s see ...

Zimphire · Oct 27, 2003, 10:37 AM

Yeah it's the one feature I want REAL Bad. :/

C.J. Moof · Oct 27, 2003, 12:03 PM

I can't even figure out why they bothered to put in a half-done feature like this..... it's just dumb.

Geobunny · Oct 27, 2003, 02:37 PM

I think we all want this, and we also all know that polls here are as useless as internet petitions! Is there any way we can orchestrate a mass "bug report" at http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/ ?

I know people (myself included) have been harking after ftp and sftp in the Finder since at least 10.0 and it certainly won't be my first feedback about it, but maybe if there are enough requests/complaints this soon after the release of 10.3, they might take notice. Maybe wishful thinking, but "I can dream, can't I?"

CatOne · Oct 27, 2003, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by DanUk2003:
I've just got Panther, and FTP in the Finder still ONLY supports read - it will NOT let you write to FTP servers by itself.

Does anyone know a work-around? Apart from using Terminal or getting a 3rd party app....

Read only does NOT mean it doesn't work.

You can always use the command-line if you want to push stuff.

Or buy something like Transmit which is AWESOME.

loopless · Oct 27, 2003, 03:11 PM

SSH/sFTP for free

loopless · Oct 27, 2003, 03:13 PM

Ahh the subject does not appear..
Try FIGU
SSH/FTP over SSH
Works great - free!

SMacTech · Oct 27, 2003, 03:14 PM

I just posted a question in Ken Bereskin's web log for Panther, asking why the Finder doesn't support FTP write access.
They must have a valid reason for it.

Geobunny · Oct 27, 2003, 03:32 PM

Actually, reading the man page for mount_ftp, there is a very valid reason for not allowing the Finder to mount an FTP server as writable.

The rdonly option will be set even if it was not specified because mount_ftp does not allow files to be opened with write access on servers.

Now I'm sure Apple (or practically anyone for that matter!) could write a workaround for this, but in order to be failsafe, it would need to have some support server-side as well as client-side, to state who has a file open as writable.

Imagine this situation of two users Jack and Jill, their ftp server called hill and a file called pail_of_water.html to which both Jack and Jill need to write information. The following sequence of events ensues:

Jack : Mounts server "hill"
Jill: Mounts server "hill"
Jack: Open "pail_of_water.html" with write acceess.
Jill: Goes to get something to drink
Jack: Meanwhile, writes a cute poem into the file
Jill: Opens "pail_of_water.html" with write access as there is no server support to say that Jack already has it open.
At this point, Jack hasn't yet saved the file (stupid bugger!)
Jill: Gets a blank document, and writes her own account of what happened
Jack: Saves the file.
Jill: Finishes writing her poem and also saves obliterating what Jack had saved previously
Jack gets annoyed that all his hard work has gone, and falls down and breaks his crown...and Jill comes tumbling after!

Sorry for the analogy, I'm in a peculiar mood tonight

but do you kind of see what I'm talking about? If not, I'll try to explain it in English!!

Brass · Oct 27, 2003, 04:41 PM

Originally posted by Geobunny:
Actually, reading the man page for mount_ftp, there is a very valid reason for not allowing the Finder to mount an FTP server as writable.

Now I'm sure Apple (or practically anyone for that matter!) could write a workaround for this, but in order to be failsafe, it would need to have some support server-side as well as client-side, to state who has a file open as writable.

Imagine this situation of two users Jack and Jill, their ftp server called hill and a file called pail_of_water.html to which both Jack and Jill need to write information. The following sequence of events ensues:

Jack : Mounts server "hill"
Jill: Mounts server "hill"
Jack: Open "pail_of_water.html" with write acceess.
Jill: Goes to get something to drink
Jack: Meanwhile, writes a cute poem into the file
Jill: Opens "pail_of_water.html" with write access as there is no server support to say that Jack already has it open.
At this point, Jack hasn't yet saved the file (stupid bugger!)
Jill: Gets a blank document, and writes her own account of what happened
Jack: Saves the file.
Jill: Finishes writing her poem and also saves obliterating what Jack had saved previously
Jack gets annoyed that all his hard work has gone, and falls down and breaks his crown...and Jill comes tumbling after!

Sorry for the analogy, I'm in a peculiar mood tonight but do you kind of see what I'm talking about? If not, I'll try to explain it in English!!

That makes some sense, but really, the work around is simple. Don't allow users to open files from FTP servers as writable. That's it. Either open them as read only, or display a dialog saying "You need to copy this to a local volume before you can open it writable".

As for overwriting each others work, well that's the way it has always been with ANY FTP client (and many other protocols!!!), and if the Finder behaved this way, it would be no different to any of the others. It's a matter for the FTP users to worry about, to the FTP developers.

Geobunny · Oct 27, 2003, 05:47 PM

Originally posted by Brass:
That makes some sense, but really, the work around is simple. Don't allow users to open files from FTP servers as writable. That's it. Either open them as read only, or display a dialog saying "You need to copy this to a local volume before you can open it writable".

As for overwriting each others work, well that's the way it has always been with ANY FTP client (and many other protocols!!!), and if the Finder behaved this way, it would be no different to any of the others. It's a matter for the FTP users to worry about, to the FTP developers.

I suppose so. My brain wasn't really in "solution finding" mode, I was merely trying to explain why it's not immediately supportable. If we're looking for solutions then, I think the best way would be if, when a file is double-clicked, it gets copied to /tmp first then opened from there. What happens though with a large file? The user would have to be warned about what was happening, or told to copy the file themselves. It's a wee bit of jiggery-pokery, but I suppose it could work.

Jim_MDP · Oct 27, 2003, 10:06 PM

Oh come on bunny...

I know you could have reworded that so you could have written:

Jack: Mounts "Jill"

Kristoff · Oct 27, 2003, 10:45 PM

First off, all this talk of "just use the command line" is BS. Yeah, I'll show my mom how to fire up the terminal--I'm sure she'll feel right at home at the unix prompt

And "buy transmit"

Just what I want...to spend more money.

And that Jack and Jill nonsense?
It's a classic computer science problem called the lost update. Let's not try to pretend any ftp client--transmit, ncftp, etc--can solve that problem.

The answer? SEPARATE FTP ACCOUNTS / live with the lost update...like every ftp client.

We all know ftp doesn't support file locking, or two-phase commit, or versioning, or rollback....so why try to use that as an excuse?

If someone tries to open a file on an ftp_mounted drive, download it to a temp directory and open it as normal. When they save, upload the updated copy back. Not rocket science here. IF jack overwrites jill's file, screw them both for sharing an ftp account.

Xeo · Oct 28, 2003, 12:03 AM

I don't know any FTP servers that allow write access and give out the same login information to multiple people. That can't be the only reason for not implementing this feature. Windows users have had this for years. When have you heard the big uproar for them about how Jill overwrote Jack's files?

However, there IS a big uproar about not having this functionality. I just submitted more feedback to Apple. I think everyone who wants this should.