On Wednesday, November 28, 2001, at 09:24 , SlashDevNull wrote:
> Is anyone using NewtFTP? I really don't care too much about not
> being
> able to backup. That is what the flashcard is for.
We just had a bit of that discussion, you may want to check the archive
of the last couple of days. I started a thread asking if there is a way
to do backup with OSX without using Classic and I described various
features of NewtFTP. If you follow that thread you'll find some useful
hints on what you can do with NewtFTP.
> But does NewtFTP really allow you to do everything except backup?
NewtFTP installs a "transfer" option into your Envelope menu. Therefore,
anything you can reroute via the envelope menu is transferable by
NewtFTP to any FTP server you have access to. You can choose between
"send as plain text" or upload as raw Newton format.
> Is it stable? Have enough features? Updated in the past few years?
I have tested it extensively for the last two weeks and haven't had any
trouble.
It is very well integrated. You can either use it like a graphical FTP
browser, or transparently via the envelope menu.
Upon download you can put away into Notes, Works or Inbox.
Don't know about the update history, but it seems pretty complete to me
and it appears to be stable.
> Does this mean that I can start the FTP server on Mac OS X and never
> have
> to go into classic mode for NCU?
Yes. Unless you want to do a full backup of your Newton.
> Of course, I have to start classic for
> 'PackType' but surely someone can write something in applescript that
> would
> do the same thing without starting classic. :)
No. You don't need PackType anymore. NewtFTP will automatically
recognise the Newton packages on the FTP server and upon download you
have the option to have the package installed straight away.
This is even better than downloading software on a PC or Mac, where you
have intermediary steps. With NewtFTP you simply download the Newton
package and answer "yes" when it asks you if you want the downloaded
package to be installed. That's it - the package will be usable right
away.
If you want to do synchronisation between -say- Names and the OSX
Addressbook, then you will however, need to write a little script on the
OSX side to pick up the uploaded file (either in plain text or raw
Netwon format) and interpret/format the content for Addressbook and vice
versa. If you know the data structure of the raw Newton format and the
OSX Addressbook, that shouldn't be so difficult. Addressbook stores your
data in ~/Library/Addresses.
What I do in order to get data quickly into the Newton is the
following ...
1) cut and paste into TextEdit or BBEdit
2) save as plain text in ~/Newton (my default Newton folder)
3) use NewtFTP to download and choose Notes as target
and voila, there is a new note with the downloaded content
When I have the time, I will try to learn more about the Newton raw
format and then I am going to write some AppleScript scripts to convert
between various apps such as Names and Addressbook. I am also thinking
about a droplet utility on which to drop a clipping and automatically
convert and make it available for NewtFTP to pickup. However, I am a
sucker for nice user interfaces, so I won't be doing anything before
AppleScript Studio isn't released. However, if I get anything useful
done, I will make it available.
Maybe it is possible to convince the author(s) of NewtFTP to implement
an "automatic download from a specific watch folder" feature. So, if a
watch folder -say- "Newton Notes" contained a file it would
automatically be downloaded at certain intervals and put away into Notes.
One last comment on backup via NewtFTP:
The reason why you can't do a backup using ftp isn't really a
shortcoming of NewtFTP. If the Newton would allow routing (via envelope
menu) of -say- storage items, then those could be backed up straight
away with NewtFTP. Unfortunately the Newton OS doesn't allow certain
items to be rerouted. If somebody would be able to come up with a system
extension that would make routing of those items possible, then backup
via ftp will be possible using NewtFTP.
rgds
BK
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