Destination Settings

iDropper is powerful, but it is simple to use. Just fill in the fields and save the settings. When you're finished you'll have a droplet you can share to make FTP transfer a breeze.

When you open iDropper you'll get the main window that you'll use to configure and save an iDropper droplet. You can also open and change an existing droplet by using Open from the File Menu or by dragging it onto the iDropper application icon. Another option is to open and edit a Droplet Template. See Using Templates for more information.

Below you will find the iDropper Destination pane. Click the interface elements on the graphic to jump to detailed information about them, or scroll down to read more.

Navigation:
Clicking these button will take you to the configuration options for Notification, Job Info and Branding.

FTP Settings

Hostname:
This is the name of your FTP server; usually something like ftp.yourdomain.com.

Username:
This is the login name or ID that you would normally use to access the server.

Password:
Enter your FTP password here. iDropper will remember the password you type in and use it to log in to the server. The user name and password are used to log into the ftp server, but your end-users will never see this information.

Path:
The path is the destination directory on the server you want to deliver the files to. iDropper expects a UNIX-style path like /users/bobjones/projectfiles.

Pathfinder:
Clicking the Pathfinder button will allow you to remotely browse the FTP server to navigate to and select the destination directory. For more information, see Using the Pathfinder.

Archiving:
Archiving has two purposes. First, it will make delivery times shorter by making a smaller file to send. This is especially true if you have a slow connection to the internet. Second, archiving can preserve Mac OS resource forks if 'binhexing' is turned on. Windows files do not have resource forks so binhexing is not supported for Windows clients.

Your options when archiving are to:

• Turn it off. Files will be uploaded to the server uncompressed and un-archived.
• Name the archive "Archive.zip"
• Give it a Timestamp name like "20050121143305.zip" which is a combination of the date and time starting with the year and ending in seconds when the archive was made. YYYYMMDDHHMMSS: year month day-of-the-month hour minute second. This example is January 21, 2005 2:33:05 PM
• Ask for a name: The end-user will be prompted for a name before it is delivered
• Use the name of the first file. Example if you drop a folder called "Documents" your archive will be called Documents.zip. If you drop files or folders named "Apple", "Banana" and "Cherry" your archive will be "Apple.zip"
• Create a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID). A UUID is an identifier standard used in software construction, standardized by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). The intent of UUIDs is to enable distributed systems to uniquely identify information without significant central coordination. Thus, anyone can create a UUID and use it to identify something with reasonable confidence that the identifier will never be unintentionally used by anyone for anything else. Information labelled with UUIDs can therefore be later combined into a single database without need to resolve name conflicts.

In addition to the archive naming options, you can control the way the Zip engine archives the files.

Choose from the following options:

• Zip: Balance size & speed – As it implies, this options strikes a middle ground between speed of compression and size of the resulting file. This is the default setting.
• Zip: Fast (large file) – This option provides faster file compression, but the resulting file will be larger
• Zip: Fastest (largest file) – This option provides the fastest file compression, but the resulting file will be largest of any option
• Zip: Small (but slow) – This option provides smaller file compression, but the archiving process will take longer
• Zip: Smallest (but slowest) – This option provides smallest file compression, but the archiving process will take longest of any option

Other Settings:

These settings are intended for advanced users who are familiar with the effect these settings will have in relation to the server. Only use these settings if you completely understand them.

Mode:
Select either Secure FTP or standard FTP.
NOTE: Pathfinder may behave differently for each setting. Standard FTP can usually be configured to restrict access to files, folders and paths. Therefore, if the ftp account being used has restricted access, only those restricted areas will appear in Pathfinder in standard FTP mode. SFTP typically gives access to any files a user might normally have access to, so Pathfinder will give access to all files and folders in SFTP mode. This only affects the administration of droplets, not the droplets themselves.

Display Completion Dialog:
Select this option if you want your end-users to see a completion dialog after files have been uploaded using the droplet.

Timeout Period
If you are trying to deliver files to a slow server you may need to make the timeout period longer. This setting is the maximum number of seconds that iDropper will wait for the server to respond to a command. If the server does not respond iDropper will give up. This number is a safety valve for servers that may not be responding properly. You probably won't need to bother with this setting.

Firewall Options
When turned on iDropper Pro will use an alternate control port. If you don't know what this means you probably don't want to use it. Ask your network administrator about the firewall.

Check Settings:
Click the "Check Settings" button to have iDropper check your settings. For more information, see the section titled Pre-flight Check. This button is available from every pane.

Save Droplet:
Click this to save your droplet. For more information, see Saving Your Droplet. This button is available from every pane.