speaking of FTP clients on Mac OS X...

[solrac]

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???

[fryke]

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.

[solrac]

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?

[chenly]

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.

[TommyWillB]

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...

[nkuvu]

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.

[solrac]

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.

[nkuvu]

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)

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

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

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