The first thing you must do in order to use Direct FTP is setup your Server Profile. You can do this by clicking on File > Servers. This will open the My Sites window. Click the Add button.
This will open the Server Profile Wizard. Follow the 5 steps.
Profile Name: This is the "nickname" of this connection. You can literally name it anything you want.
Username: This is your FTP username. This is assigned to you by your webhosting company. You can click Anonymous if your FTP server allows anonymous connections, but most likely it does not.
Password: This is your FTP password. This is assigned to you by your webhosting company. You can click Save Password so that you don't have to retype it everytime you connect.
Hostname: This is the TCP/IP hostname of your FTP Server. It should be in the form of "ftp.yourdomain.com". Do not include "ftp://" or any directory name such as "ftp.yourdomain.com/mysite" because these are invalid TCP/IP hostnames. It is up to your webhosting company to assign your FTP server hostname, so you will need to find out from them what it is.
Note: It can also come in the form of an IP address.Good examples of a hostname:
ftp.mysite.comBad examples of a hostname:
ftp://ftp.mysite.comDefault folder on host:
This is the folder that you will be brought to immediately after connecting. You must put the full path in here.
For example, if you keep all your HTML files on your FTP webserver in the directory "mysite/webfiles/public_html" then you can put this as your default folder and it will take you here immediately. Remember that you must put the entire path name. If you just put in "public_html" it would not work, unless on your FTP webserver you actually had a "public_html" folder in your root directory.
Proxy Server: If you use a proxy server to connect to the Internet you may need to use a proxy to FTP as well. If you do use a Proxy, click yes and enter in all your Proxy information, if you don't just click No.
Once you have setup the Profile you should see it listed in the My Sites window now.
You have a few more options you can select about your connection at this time.
Passive Mode: If your webserver uses Passive connections you will need to check this option to connect.
Secure: If your webserver allows or requires SSH connections you can check this option to enable it.
Use Noop: Checking this option will keep your connection alive without any activity. For instance, if you connect to your FTP webserver and don't do anything in a certain amount of time it may disconnect you for inactivity. With Use Noop checked it will try to keep your connection alive for a longer amount of time.
Initial Local Folder: This is the folder that will appear under the My Computer tab after you connect. Some prefer to put the directory their website is in, on their local computer, in this field, so that right after you connect, you will be in the appropriate directory without needing to browse.
Comment: You can put any comments about this connection here.
After you have your connection setup, click Connect and it should connect you to the FTP server.
If you already have a connection setup just click the Servers button and choose which connection you want to connect to.
Once you have successfully connected to your FTP server you can now begin either uploading or downloading files.
You should see two main windows in Direct FTP. My Computer and My Site. My Computer shows the local files on your PC. My Site shows the files on your FTP server.
To upload, you will be transferring files or folders from your computer to the FTP server. Select the files you want to upload in the My Computer window. To select a file, left-click on it. To select multiple files you can drag and box over them. Or click on one, hold down Shift, click on another, and all the files in between will be selected.
Whatever the current folder you are in under the My Site tab is where the files will be uploaded. In order to uploads files where you want them, browse to the folder you want them uploaded to on the FTP server, highlight the files under My Computer and then click Upload.
To download files the same concepts apply. Highlight the files or folders you want to download under the My Site window, browse to the folder on your PC under the My Computer window where you want the files to be downloaded to, then click Download.
When transferring files, they are either transferred in ASCII or BINARY mode. You can let Direct FTP decide which it should be automatically leaving the transfer mode to Auto. Alternately, you can choose ASCII or BINARY if you need.
To delete files, right-click on the files and choose Delete.
Any files that are on a FTP server have something called Permissions. Permissions are what tell the FTP server how it should treat this file. To access a files Permissions right-click on it and choose Permissions.
You can change the way the server treats this file, depending on certain user groups. The groups are Owner, Group and All Users.
The different permissions you can set for the files are Read, Write and Execute.
The only time you should need to change any permissions is if you are installing any sort of CGI or other scripts into your website.
You may be instructed to set a certain file to permission 755, which is:
Owner: Read, Write, ExecuteThis is the normal setting for a CGI script in your webserver.
To find out more about how File Permissions on Webservers work you can read some tutorials available on the Internet: Search Here
In order to use the editor, first make sure it is enabled. You can enable it by clicking on the View button and clicking FTP and Edit view, or just Edit view.
This will bring up the Editor. You can drag a file from the My Computer or My Site window directly into this window and it will open it and will be ready to be edited.
Once you are done editing the file to your liking, you can then save it to your Computer or back to the FTP Server.
Click on the Floppy Disk icon and click either Save as Local or Save to Website.
Direct FTP makes use of the 3rd party program Putty to give you the ability to Telnet or SSH into your FTP server.
Click the Telnet/SSH button to start Putty.
Putty is a 3rd party program so please direct all inquiries for information or support to: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/The FTP Activity log can be used for troubleshooting purposes or just to monitor all the details of your connection.
To enable it click on View > FTP Activity Log. Here you will see all the details of your current connection, along with any error messages that may have occurred.
To set a bookmark click the Add a Bookmark button while in the directory you want to bookmark.