The following is a list of features that comes built into NetFinder and requires no additional components.
Please note that some features are not described here because they are targeted to a specific group of users.
We highly recommend looking through the full documentation.
Supported Protocols
- FTP -> File Transfer Protocol.
- HTTP -> Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (web pages).
- FILE -> Browse files like the Finder.
Supported Security Protocols
for FTP Protocol
- SecurID friendly.
- PASV connection support.
- FTP proxy (this is not the same as HTTP proxy).
- s/key, OTP (One Time Password). Auto detect and login. Supports code and word based passwords.
- SOCKS v4 and v5 (v5 support is limited). Microsoft Proxy 2.0 users will require the latest service pack.
- FTP through a HTTP Proxy. Only a limited number of HTTP proxies are supported.
- SSL (Secure Socket Layer). See "Advanced Features" section for more details.
for HTTP Protocol
- Basic HTTP Authentication.
- HTTP through a Proxy Server.
MacOS Specific Support
- Appearance Manager Savvy -> Meaning you can change the theme of your user interface.
- Contextual Menus -> Provides instant access to commands at a click of a mouse button.
- Drag and Drop Manager -> Provides seemless ease of use that we all take for granted on the MacOS.
- Keychain Manager -> Provides a very secure way to store your passwords without other people finding out.
- Internet Control Panel -> Provides a single location to obtain and configure your internet access needs.
- Open Transport -> Provides superior speed and reliability for file transfers.
- Navigation Manager -> Allows you to open and save files more easily.
- Quicktime -> Provides support for viewing a wide variety of images and media including movies and MP3's.
- Sound and Speech Manager -> Provides sound and speech notification to notify you when operations are complete.
- Thread Manager -> Allows you to perform multiple operations simultaneously.
- Window Proxy Icon Support -> Provides a simple yet powerful way to grab or move things around.
- 32bit Icon Support -> Allows icons to be drawn in millions of colors instead of 256 colors. ie looks better.
Third Party Product Support
- BBEdit -> Seemless integration to provide easy editing of files on an FTP server.
- Internet Explorer and Netscape
-> Allows NetFinder to perform all FTP downloads, thus allowing you to resume all incomplete transfers.
-> When browsing in NetFinder, you can drag and drop a file into your browser window to view the graphic, web page, movie etc.
- Shared Menu Support -> This provides integration with products like URL Manager Pro and Frontier.
NetFinder User Interface Specific
- MacOS Finder look and feel. This includes:
-> Twist down triangles next to folders in list view. ie Hierarchical view in one window to reduce multi-window clutter.
-> Multiple window support when browsing a server. ie Not limited to a single window or listing per site.
-> Multiple columns of information like name, size, kind, modify date, owner, group, permissions etc.
-> User configurable columns of information, thus allowing you to hide and show columns of data.
-> Re-ordering of the columns in the display.
-> Re-sizing of the columns in the display.
-> Ability to sort the displayed data in ascending or descending order.
-> Persistant window state, allows window positions and display column configurations to be remembered.
-> Proxy icon support. Helps move around an FTP site quicker.
-> Proportional scroll bars, so you can estimate the quantity of items in a folder.
-> Live scrolling, so the display is updated immediately when you scroll.
-> Scrolling the contents of a listing by "grabbing" the contents. ie Command-Click-Drag to get hand cursor.
-> Dynamically changing the contents of a column when resized. eg "1Mb" -> "1203024 bytes"
-> Contextual Menu support to make deleting, viewing, setting permissions etc. accessable via a single mouse click.
-> Supports drag selection of items in the display. ie Marquee selection.
-> Supports icon badges to indicate if an object is a alias or is locked.
-> Support for showing folder permissions like drop folder, locked folder etc.
-> Support for setting the display font and font size.
-> Inline filename renaming. ie Just like the Finder.
-> Create a new folder with Command-N.
-> Get Info on a file or folder with Command-I.
-> Duplicate a file with Command-D. (only on servers that support it)
-> Delete a file or folder with Command-Delete (or Command-Backspace).
-> Supports keyboard (arrow keys) navigation. eg Command-Down to open a folder.
-> Drag and drop everything, including:
-> drag and drop to Trash.
-> drag and drop into another folder to move a file or folder.
-> drag and drop objects into the current folder from a subfolder.
-> drag and drop into another window.
-> drag and drop between two servers. ie server-to-server copy. (only on servers that support it)
-> drag and drop to upload and download.
-> drag and drop into text editor to get a list of URL's.
- View Graphic/Media Window -> allows you to quickly see a preview of graphics/movies/MP3's/.swf on a site without using another application.
- View File as Text Window -> allows you to quickly view the remote file as text on screen.
- Job Transfer Window -> displays incomplete downloaded files that can simply be double clicked to have them resume.
- Job Transfer Log Window -> shows a history of files that were uploaded and downloaded.
- Recent Items Menu -> easy access to recently opened bookmarks, sites and directories at sites.
- URL completion -> type in the first few characters of a recently visited site and have the rest of the server name be filled in.
- Script Menu -> allows you to add your favorite AppleScripts, Perl/TCL and ICI Scripts in a single menu.
- Balloon Help -> to help describe numerous parts of the interface without referring to the documentation.
- Bookmark Windows, which includes support for:
-> creating folders to categorize your bookmarks.
-> save passwords in your bookmarks. Use of Keychain Manager is recommended as its more secure.
-> simple creation of bookmarks by hand, or by simply dragging and dropping from a listing window.
-> most features you can do in the Finder-like interface mentioned above are supported in the Bookmark window.
-> adding comments to a bookmark.
-> adding a label to your bookmark, like in the Finder.
-> Magically make a bookmark list into a download queue so you can download items one by one.
- Upload Mirror Window, which includes support for:
-> creating folders to categorize your mirror bookmarks.
-> save passwords in your mirror bookmarks. Use of Keychain Manager is recommended as its more secure.
-> simple creation of mirror bookmarks by hand, or by simply dragging and dropping from a listing window.
-> adding comments to a mirror bookmark.
-> adding a label to your mirror bookmark.
-> simple double-click to start the upload mirror process.
- File Filtering, which includes support for:
-> filter files based on their names from the listing window. Simply type in a few characters contained in a word and see the display shrink to only show the items that match your request. eg type ".gif" to only show GIF files in a folder of GIF's, JPEG's and HTML files.
-> wild card support.
-> RegExp support.
NetFinder Non-User Interface Specific
for FTP Protocol
- List directories -> Obtains a list of files in a folders and displays it in a form Mac users are used to.
- Resume downloads -> Supports resuming a file when you quit or crash your Mac, or when your modem drops.
- Queued downloads -> You don't have to wait for your last download to complete or establish another connection to the server.
- Retry connections -> Useful when trying to get into a busy FTP site.
- Directory caching -> Listings are cached, so you don't need to re-fetch the data every time you open the same window.
- Set Permissions -> Simple and powerful ability to set the access permission of a single file or a folder of files.
- Upload Mirroring -> Makes synchronizing a local folder of items to a server as easy as double clicking.
- Support for VMS servers.
- Server Parser Plugins -> Allows for easy extensibility of NetFinder to support FTP servers with non-standard listings.
for HTTP Protocol
- List directories -> Obtains a list of files in a folders and displays it in a form Mac users are used to. (on servers that support it)
- Resume downloads -> Supports resuming a file when you quit or crash your Mac, or when your modem drops.
- Queued downloads -> You don't have to wait for your last download to complete or establish another connection to the server.
- Directory caching -> Listings are cached, so you don't need to re-fetch the data every time you open the same window.
Miscellaneous
- Support for on-the-fly encoding and decoding of Text, MacBinary and Binhex files when uploading and downloading. This saves you having up to twice as much disk space if you were to say decode a file after downloading. eg a 50Mb game demo.
- MacBinary III support, enables you to upload or download a Macintosh file with 100% accuracy.
- Speedy transfer rates of up to 1Mb per second over 10BaseT (10Mbit ethernet). ie Optimal throughput. Modem users don't really need to worry about this because a 56k modem only transfers 0.056Mbits per second.
Advanced Features:
The following features are for advanced users and are only supported for PowerPC Macintoshes, eg 6100 to 9500, G3's, G4's, iMacs, iBooks etc. These components do not come as part of the default NetFinder package. You must download it from the specified locations in order to add functionality to NetFinder.
SSL an emerging standard for securely transferring files around by encrypting all data transferred and encrypting all messaging between the client (NetFinder) and the server.
Do I need SSL?
If you transfer confidential documents, you will probably want to use SSL.
Where can I find information on SSL?
NetFinder's implementation of SSL is based on OpenSSL. For internal details about OpenSSL you can find more information about it on <http://www.openssl.org/>. Here you will find more information about SSL, which platforms its implemented on, lots of documentation, mailing lists regarding SSL and much much more.
Which servers support SSL?
Currently, very few servers (or ISP's) support SSL for FTP. However, as security becomes a more important issue we are likely to see more servers support SSL for FTP.
How do I enable SSL in NetFinder?
Simply download the OpenSSLLib module from the NetFinder web site:
Uncompress the downloaded archive with something like Stuffit Expander, then simply drop the module into the NetFinder folder.
Once installed, NetFinder will automatically try to establish a secure connection to every server you connect to. If a secure connection is established, you will see a closed pad lock in the top right corner of your window.
ICI Script Support Module
ICI is pronounced icky.
What is ICI?
ICI is a C-like scripting language written by Canon Information Systems Research Australia.
It has a low memory/code footprint and is extensible in functionality.
Do I need ICI?
If you like to write your own automate tasks or want to directly call NetFinder's internal FTP engine to perform custom tasks based on custom criteria etc, then you probably want to have a play with ICI.
