How ScriptFTP 4.1 looks on high-dpi screens

Since the version 3, ScriptFTP has relied Windows Forms to build its buttons, panels etc. This is one of the many available tools that we the software developers use to build user interfaces, a very popular in fact. But since high density displays (high DPI displays) are becoming more and more popular, users of the apps that use this technology notice that they look bad on their shiny new screens. They only have two choices: scale everything up, making these apps look pixelated or keep their original size and struggle to understand anything on the program because every element is shown tiny, almost unreadable.

Fortunately, some time ago, Microsoft released new programmer tools to build user interfaces (WPF and XAML) that scale gracefully across different screen sizes and pixel densities. The latest version of ScriptFTP (v4.1 and still under development) has been built using these tools and looks much better on modern computers. Take a look at the difference, older version on the left, new version on the right:

If you want to try the beta version feel free to drop an email at support@scriptftp.com . Most of the things are already working except the script scheduler.

New web site

It has been a long time since the last time the ScriptFTP web site has changed its looks. Except for minor updates in the Examples and Documentation section. We have finally made the conversion of all of its contents to a brand new server and a completely redesigned look.

The changes? Most of them related to the new stardards for web site development. You know, responsiveness for firendly mobile view, bigger elements for high dpi displays and so on. Now let’s focus on the next release of the program.

A note about the script to EXE conversion service

From time to time we receive an email asking if the script to EXE conversion service (more info about it here) is an installable software, or a Windows service that runs in the background and automatically converts the FTP files to standalone EXE programs.

Well, it is not. This is a special kind of customer service where we manually build an EXE file (using the Windows development tools) from a script file you send to us. It is that simple ;).

A question regarding how to share parameters between many script files

I would like to share here a common question that from time to time it is answered via email (you can request tech support in the Contact section):

Dear Support:

Sorry to bother you, I looked at a few forum pages and could not search for ‘include’ (because it was ‘a too common word’).  Just a high-level question in three parts as I am evaluating ScriptFTP:
1) Can I use the equivalent of an ‘#include <stdio.h>’ (C notation) to put common parts of scripts or functions into one place?  All the examples I have seen were in one stand-alone ‘.ftp’ file.
2) If not possible, can I at least make a connection script that I call from another script and use it?
(For example on.ftp is the logon and off.ftp the logoff script, can I have a main.ftp that calls on.ftp, does some FTP stuff and calls off.ftp then?)
3) If 2) works, could I call the three .ftp scripts from a Powershell individually (in sequence)?  Or do I lose the connection as soon as the script is done?

So far I am impressed.  The scripting is easy and straightforward, and from what I’ve read I can combine it with Powershell via command line… The best feature is the return code check after each command during the session.  Good job.

And our answer here:

1) “Including” other script files within a script is not supported, sorry.

2) If you want to share server names, user names etc among many scripts try using GETENV (to retrieve an environment variable where you have stored the FTP server address, for example) or use GETPARAM which retrieves parameters from the command line. I hope this answer your question.

3) The connection is lost but you can call three script sequentially just call ScriptFTP.exe the_script_path.ftp. See ScriptFTP in the command line

ScriptFTP 4 version released

After many months of beta testing the version 4 will finally replace the version 3.3 (Although the old version can still be found in the Attic.

The changes from the version 3.3 are:

• SFTP support (previously only FTPS and plain FTP were supported)
• Faster script execution, lower load time.
• Automatically recover from lost connections and partial file transfers due connection fails.
• Integration with the task scheduler on newer versions of Windows (7, 8 and 8.1)
• Many minor changes and small fixes.

ScriptFTP 4 Beta status

The first beta of ScriptFTP 4 was released a year ago. Since its very first build dozens of bugs and problems have been solved. As of today this is what is missing or does not work completely fine, in other words this is what is left to replace the trusty and old version 3.3:

ScriptFTP 4 beta release

ScriptFTP with SFTP support is finally here. It has taken longer than expected as a completely redesign of the program was required to accommodate SFTP, a completely different protocol than FTP and FTPS.

Be aware that this is only a Beta release for testing only. Use the old and trusty version of ScriptFTP (3.3) if you require a bullet proof solution. Eventually, as soon as this beta release is extensively tested it will replace the version 3.

You can download it at the download section.

The changes are the following:

• [New] SFTP support. More info.
• [New] Simpler use of ADDEXCLUSION. More info
• [New] Script scheduling now supports all the settings that the Windows task programming service support. Not only the basic ones such as time of day, periodicity etc.
• [Fix] Faster script execution. Completely rewritten script engine
• [Fix] Faster script start-up

If you have any comments or find any problem with this beta version please, let us know

ScriptFTP 3.4 – development status

As some users in the forum have pointed, during 2010 there were no updates for ScriptFTP. This does not mean in any way that ScriptFTP is not being actively developed. On the contrary, small fixes for the current version have been released and the installation package available in the download section has been replaced quite often.

Long awaited features such as SFTP support (FTPS is already supported) are being developed and will arrive with the new version. But note that as SFTP is a completely different protocol from FTP and FTPS (although the name is almost equal), ScriptFTP must be almost rewritten to support it. We also have decided to build ScriptFTP from ground-up with a totally different design approach and use C# instead C++, and ScriptFTP has thousands of lines of source code.
So be patient! The year that is about to arrive in a few hours will take us new versions and great improvements.

PsPad now includes ScriptFTP syntax highlighting in the installation package

The last build of the popular text editor PsPad now includes a ScriptFTP syntax highlighter. Only the installation of the PsPad latest build is needed to start working with ScriptFTP scripts and get coloured commands, comments and variables.

This feature is still not available in the mainstream version of PsPad, it’s currently only available in the development build. Until the next version of PsPad is released, the PsPad configuration file will be still available in the downloads section.

ScriptFTP 3.3 has been released

This new release of ScriptFTP comes with many bug fixes and the update is highly recommended, specially if you run ScriptFTP on Windows Vista/7/Server 2008. The new features are the following:

• [New command] GETFILE2. Downloads a file and sotres it using the specified file name.
• [New command] PUTFILE2. Uploads a file and stores it using the specified file name.
• [New command] SETFILETIME. Sets the file modification time of a local or remote file.
• [New command] ISCONNECTED. Checks if the connection with the FTP server is still alive.
• [New command] SETTIMEOUT. Sets the number of seconds ScriptFTP will wait for a server response before droping an error.
• [New command] STOPLOG.
• [Other] ScriptFTP error codes have been sorted and changed in this version. For further reference, a complete list of them has been written. It is available here.
• [Other] GETDATE has changed its name to GETTIME. For backwards compatibility GETDATE could be still used.

As usual, the setup file is available in the Downloads section.

Feel free to comment anything related to this new release in the forum or contacting the support.