The WS_FTP Queuing Utility lets you create FTP tasks or “jobs”
for transfers that you need to automatically perform repeatedly or manually at a particular time. Each task can consist of any number of uploads and/or downloads of files and folders.
This chapter gives an overview of the Queuing Utility and some examples of how you might use it. For detailed instructions on using the Queuing Utility, start the Queuing Utility and use its online Help, or press F1.
Using the Queuing Utility
When WS_FTP Pro is installed and you restart your PC, the WS_FTP Queuing Utility starts automatically; you will see its icon in the Windows Taskbar.
When you are ready to add a task to the queue, you activate the Queuing Utility window.
To access this window, do one of the following:
• Double-click the Queuing Utility icon in the Windows Taskbar.
• Select WS_FTP Queuing Utility from the Utilities menu in the WS_FTP Pro Classic interface.
• Click the Windows Start button and select Programs ->
WS_FTP Pro -> WS_FTP Queuing Utility.
The WS_FTP Queuing Utility Icon
Once you are in the Queuing Utility window, you are ready to set up a file transfer task. You can:
• Add a pre-existing script to run at a particular time. (For more information on creating scripts, see “Chapter 9: Scripting” on page 97.)
• Drag and drop a file from your Desktop to the Queuing Utility window to create an upload task.
• Drag and drop a link from your Web browser to the Queuing Utility window to create a download task.
• Create a task from within WS_FTP Pro by right-clicking the file and selecting Send to Queue.
The WS_FTP Queuing Utility will run the task at the time you schedule it to run, or you can make the task run on demand by using the Run Now option.
Examples
The following are examples of how you might use the WS_FTP Queuing Utility.
Adding a Script to the Queue To add a script to the queue:
1 Start the Queuing Utility as described above.
2 In the Queuing Utility window, select File > Add Script. A window opens in which you can browse to find the script you want to use for the update process.
3 Select the script, and click Open.
4 Locate and select the script name, and click Open.
The “Transfer Properties” dialog box is displayed so you can set the time and frequency of the task.
5 (Optional) To run the task one time, select One Time and set the time.
6 Click OK to add the task to the queue.
7 (Optional) Select File > Run Now to run the task immediately.
Running a Quick Download Using Drag and Drop When you find an FTP URL link on the World Wide Web and want to download the referenced file, you no longer need to download the file right then using your Web browser. Instead, you can create a task for the WS_FTP Queuing Utility to download the file at your convenience.
To do this:
1 Start your Web browser, and locate the FTP URL.
2 Start the WS_FTP Queuing Utility.
3 Size and position the windows so that the Web browser and WS_FTP Queuing Utility windows are both visible on your Desktop.
4 Drag the link from the browser and drop it in the WS_FTP Queuing Utility window. The “Transfer Properties” dialog box appears.
5 Enter the connection information for the site, including the user ID and password.
6 Click the browse (...) button next to the Destination Directory box to select the location to which you want to download the file.
7 Click the Options tab and click the One Time option to specify that this is not a reoccurring download.
8 Click OK to add the task to the queue.
When you are ready to download the file, run the task by selecting File > Run Now.
Updating a Web Site on a Nightly Basis
If you have a Web site that you would like to update each and every night, without having to manually upload all of the files you have recently changed, you can set up a script and schedule it to run every night.
1 Select the files from your desktop, or from Windows Explorer and drag and drop them into the Queuing Utility window.
You can select multiple files or folders by holding the Ctrl key and clicking the name.
Note
You can only drag and drop one group of files for each task.
Furthermore, at this time, you cannot add files to a task that has already been established.
The “Transfer Properties” dialog box is displayed when you drop the files into the Queuing Utility window.
2 In the dialog box, define the parameters with which you will connect to the FTP site.
3 Click the Options tab to set the schedule for the task to be run. In the following illustration, we have set up this task to run every day at 11:00 PM.
4 Click OK to add this task to the queue.