NFTP : New File Transfer Protocol Client
Copyright (C) 1994-1998 Sergey Ayukov

Starting from version 1.20, detailed information about development progress is also available.

VERSION HISTORY

Version 0.1 (preview) 02 Feb 1995

First usable version. Used FTPAPI calls. Very slow; control connection messages cannot be seen. Wasn't exposed to public, although available.

Version 0.2 (preview) 19 Apr 1995

Got rid of FTPAPI. Full-scale socket programming of ftp control connection and data transfers. Introduced bookmarks.

Version 0.3 (preview)

Never showed to public. The last version compiled with IBM CSet++. See 0.4.

Version 0.4 (preview) 25 May 1995

Nearly the same as 0.3, but compiled with emx 0.9a + gcc 2.6.3. A handful of new features:

• logging in and out without restarting entire program;
• passworded entries in bookmark file;
• quick directory change: if you know where to go, you won't need to traverse all intermediate dirs;
• various bug fixes.

Version 0.5 (preview; close the beta stage) 16 Jul 1995

Bugfixes plus

• ability to work in any 80xXX mode (25 <= XX)
• online context sensitive help (press F1, Shift+F1)
• code reorganization
• some errors are handled (mostly login errors)
• directory sorting by name, size, date/time
• create directory on the remote, remove file(s) on the remote
• preserving date/time of files downloaded
• fast built-in file viewer
• ability to invoke any ftp server command
• better socket selecting scheme

Will not work after 31 Dec 1995

Version 0.51 (preview; close the beta stage) 19 Jul 1995

I am sorry for releasing 0.5 so full of bugs... There was a lot of...

• fixed couple of awful bugs (memory corruption) resulting in core dumps etc;
• got rid of malloc (goodbye, flat memory space! welcome, 32-bit segments and memory protection!)
• you can set nonstandard port in nftp.ini

Version 0.52

Same as 0.51 but without 31 Dec limitation. Only to be distributed by SAMS Publishing.

Version 0.53 (beta) 21 Dec 1995

Nearly the same as 0.52 but limited to 30 March 1996.

Version 0.60 (beta) 31 Mar 1996

I am a bit short on time; 0.53 expires today, so some new features weren't tested much. Bugfixes and small improvements plus:

• reget (restarting transfers)
• uploading
• IP numbers can be used instead of host names
• "Q" and "S" work! you can skip files during transfer or stop download/upload
• more intelligent networking (fixes some problems with dynamic IP)
• changing local directory, viewing list of local files etc.
• ability to specify arbitrary port (not in bookmarks though)
• new bookmarks can be created with Insert key
• installation program
• documentation

Version 0.70 (beta) 30 Apr 1996

Few bugfixes (including failing to recognize "hostname/directory" format when specified in the command line) plus

• fixed nasty bug causing nftp to crash when viewing some files with internal viewer -- thanks to Jose Ruiz who pointed out to such file
• sort by extension
• much more error recovery; there should be no more situations when nftp exits silently;
• improved sound signals; includes beep after successful login (configurable)
• tables in this manual look much nicer now :-)
• firewalling support -- does not work yet
• remappable keys
• ability to specify download directory in NFTP.INI. NFTP will change into that directory after start
• IBM TCP/IP ftpd for OS/2 is supported
• Windows NT ftpd is supported
• Windows 3.x WFTPD by Texas Imperial Software is supported
• Progress indicator in "view remote file" and during receiving of directory listing
• You can now try to "chdir" to symbolic link
• "Parsed" directory view -- hit Ctrl-P and see
• National language support -- check out NFTP home page
• Average transfer speed is now recorded in the history (.fls file)
• Russian version
• Chinese BIG-5 version
• Spanish version

Version 0.71 (beta) 2 Jun 1996

Several bugfixes plus

• '*' inverts selection
• f8 deletes local directories
• Neologic FTPD is supported
• moving language-dependent strings into separate DLLs (thus greatly reducing size of the package)
• (un)marking files by template (eg, '*.txt')
• Hungarian version
• German version
• Danish version
• Japanese version
• caching of viewed remote files
• downloading all marked files from all directories (alt-f5)

Version 0.72 (beta) 6 Jun 1996

No new functionality. Fixed small mistakes in national language translations. Added Norwegian version. Added missing ASCII and Postscript manuals.

Version 0.80 (beta) 12 Jul 1996

• Support for Neologic FTPD in UNIX emulating mode
• Support for PowerWeb FTPD
• Support for old (with DOS-like output) Windows NT ftp server
• F6 renames files/directories (on remote too)
• Alt-S saves listing of current directory into file
• left/right/ctrl-left/ctrl-right scroll remote/local directory listing
• symbols select files starting with these symbols
• complete firewalling support (a-la WS_FTP) (wasn't completely tested)
• built-in fileviewer now has ability to save file and search for text
• retrieving directories/viewing files is now interruptable (with ESC)
• when anonymous login is denied, NFTP will retry after specified amount of time
• Italian version
• Brazilian Portuguese version

Version 0.81 (beta) 9 Aug 1996

Mostly bugfixes. Also

• Dutch version

Version 0.82 (beta) 15 Aug 1996

Fixed bug causing zerodivide when transferring small (<1000 bytes) files and total size of batch transfer is larger than 1MB.

• NFTP now assumes that server has Unix-like LIST output when server OS was not recognized.
• French version (provided as separate DLL).

Version 0.83 (beta) 27 Sep 1996

I am very sorry -- releasing 0.82 with 1 Oct limit was a very stupid idea because right now I am in process of completing my PhD. I hope to return to work on NFTP in middle October or early November. There are no differences between 0.82 and 0.83 except expiration date. French version is now integrated into the package.

This version will live until 1 Feb 1997 (apparently I don't want to disappoint you just when you're celebrating New Year ;-) I hope to produce release (1.0) meantime.

Version 0.90 (release) 30 Jan 1997

This version is essentially the same as 1.0; it will expire 1 Mar 1997 so you can use it while registering version NFTP (<smile>). Many small bugfixes and much more improved error checking plus

• PM Clipboard support (shift-insert/ctrl-insert)
• Cursor is positioned correctly after deleting/creating/sorting/etc
• spacebar/tab switches are more consistent now
• PWD is no longer necessary
• history in the command prompts (somewhat poorly done; use up/down)
• Ctrl-Z is no longer transferred in ASCII mode
• completely redesigned bookmarks
• some kind of batch mode; see command-line arguments
• directories are now removed with RMD
• fixed problem with template marking (*.h* -> foo.h)
• view turns transfer mode back when completed
• case insensitivity in file searches
• fixed problems with NT servers
• you can get file from unreadable directory (alt-d)
• improved handling of numeric IP addresses
• fixed junk appearing in input fields sometimes
• folder for NFTP. Editing .bmk and .ini
• tab expanding in viewer
• password is no longer visible in some firewall configurations
• long strings in prompts
• ask to re-read remote directory after changes done to it
• ability to reverse initial sort order in NFTP.INI
• esc no longer causes problems during transfer if hit several times
• Bulgarian version

Version 1.00 (release) 30 Jan 1997

Same as version 0.90 but requires registering to transfer files larger than 500KB.
26 Feb 1997 was a black day in NFTP history. My hard drive (Quantum BigFoot 2.5GB) has died (only 3/4 sectors are readable). Latest NFTP sources were lost; I was thrown to pre-1.00 level. After long and painful attempts to read what is readable, much of the source code was restored, but I am still not sure that every feature/bugfix of 1.00 has been recovered. The result is version 1.02.

Version 1.01

SOCKS-capable version (was in limited distribution). Only binaries survived the hard drive accident by pure chance.

Version 1.02 (release) 16 Apr 1997

Close to 1.01. Comparing to 1.00, it fixes great deal of small bugs and adds ability to insert/edit bookmarks from inside NFTP (Insert/Ctrl-E).

Version 1.03 (release) 18 Apr 1997

The bug (probably in IBM VisualAge C++ compiler) prevented 1.02 from working under Warp 3. This version is compiled with emx/gcc as usual. Also fixed:

• now works through firewalls again (1.02 was broken because it always tried passive mode)
• warning beep is issued when wrong values are entered while editing/adding bookmark.

Version 1.10 (beta) 21 Dec 1997

Quite significant rewrite. The program is no longer multithreaded which has greatly reduced complexity and eliminated number of obscure bugs. The source code is highly portable now; OS-dependent part is only several kilobytes. This would allow myself to port NFTP to other OSes if I will want it. So far only Win32 port is planned but no work has been done yet. National language support system is almost completely new; it now relies on text files with message strings instead of DLLs. This allows to check translations/layout/syntax very quickly and is also much more portable than DLLs.

Among the new features are:

• Marking entire directory trees is possible. When starting transfer, you are given a choice to put all files into one directory or reproduce directory structure of the server. Use Alt-F5, as usual. Note: only files in the subdirectories of current one will be transferred. Mark directories with Insert. Download only.
• NFTP is much more responsive now to transfer interruption commands.
• NFTP no longer issues useless CWD commands when changing to the directory that was already cached.
• AutoReconnect -- NFTP will login automatically if connection has been broken. You no longer have to worry about timeouts etc. Or you can disconnect and leave NFTP idle, and when needed, NFTP will log in back and do all requested things. May be I am not clear here...
• SmartAppend -- in batch mode (when transferring multiple files) decision on whether to append/overwrite/skip is made based on file date/time/size;
• autodownloading file descriptions (00index.txt etc.) and showing them (a-la CuteFTP);
• during transfer, you no longer can look at control connection history (was: Space key). Tell me if you really need this feature.

Version 1.11 (release) 10 Jan 1998

This release fixes numerous bugs found in 1.10.
Behaviour of 'auto-fetch-descriptions' has been changed a little; automatic/manual loading is now switched with Ctrl-O. 'auto-fetch-descriptions=no' means that NFTP starts in "manual" mode. Use Ctrl-O to switch it to automatic mode.

Version 1.20 (release) 25 Feb 1998

Minor bugfixes and interface improvements since 1.11.

• Win32 and Linux versions (beta quality)
• New keyboard defaults (old ones still work except several keys listed in Keyboard Reference)
• F9 invokes editor on nftp.ini from inside NFTP and then reloads nftp.ini
• Several new Web pages, including development progress and plans
• Unisys A Series mainframe ftp server support
• NFTP should run OK at every window size, including large ones (at least 70 columns and 15 rows are recommended)

Version 1.21 (release) 5 April 1998

Bugfixes since 1.20, plus FreeBSD and SPARC Solaris ports and automatic nftp.ini update when upgrading to next version.

Version 1.22 (release) 22 May 1998

Bugfixes since 1.21, plus

• history feature (invoked by F2/Ctrl-E)
• new, unified scheme for screen output completely eliminating snow effects in OS/2 and Windows versions
• job control has been significantly improved (Unix excluding FreeBSD)
• two mailing lists for announcements and discussions
• enhanced installation script (Unix)
• working flags in bookmarks and history: "p" -- always use passive mode for that site; "r" -- retry indefinitely; "f" -- inside firewall
• new option "start-prompt" in the nftp.ini: 1 -- to open anonymous login prompt, 2 -- to open bookmark window, 3 -- to open history, 4 -- to open private login prompt
• Ukrainian translation

Version 1.30 (release) 20 August 1998

Minor tweaks and bugfixes, plus

• customizable CUA-like menu system (use F9 or Ctrl-F to invoke)
• private logins/transfers are possible from the command line (use ftp://userid:password@site.domain.net/directory format)
• upload (-p URL) and batch transfers (-@ cmdfile) are now possible from the command line
• nicknames for quick search in the bookmarks or history from the command line (-b nick or -h nick)
• choice of several pseudographics replacements under Unix
• job control (Ctrl-Z, bg, fg) now works under FreeBSD
• size transfer limit in unregistered version is now 1MB
• option (-m) to force monochrome mode (Unix)
• static binaries are no longer provided for Unixes
• easy-to-use installer for Windows version
• experimental port to BeOS (Intel R3)

Version 1.40 (release) 23 October 1998

Minor bugfixes plus

• new homepage: www.ayukov.com (http://ayukov.com also works);
• IMPORTANT: this version no longer supports plain passwords in bookmark file; use bookmark editor to add passwords and don't forget to enable bookmarked passwords in nftp.ini. Old plain passwords will be *deleted* from bookmark file on first save!
• NFTP should now correctly restart transfers when nothing is received during timeout specified in nftp.ini (default is 3 min);
• Window with NFTP can now be resized (Unix xterm, BeOS Terminal);
• NFTP now reads termcap for key definitions (improves compatibility with some OSes and terminal emulators) (Unix, BeOS);
• new login procedure (all parameters are composed on one screen) which is also used for bookmark editing; old procedure is now under item "Open URL" in the "Sites" submenu;
• option to download selected files with external program (defaults to GNU wget);
• AS/400 ftp server support;
• preliminary support for three kinds on VMS ftp servers (MultiNet, MadGoat, UCX);
• option to record descriptions of downloaded files;
• option to use right/left arrows to enter/leave directory;
• upload and function keys now work in the BeOS version;
• full clipboard support under OS/2 in all prompts;
• version which runs under xterm in XFree86/OS2 (see nftp140ox.zip);

Version 1.41 (release) 18 November 1998

Bugfixes since 1.40; there are no new features. Possible security vulnerability has been fixed, and Polish translation has been added.