Using FTP Program
BulletProof FTP basics

 

Setting up your BPFTP program
(step by step instructions to connect with your site)

 

Before you can download the files you need to do your translations, you must set up the FTP program. The FTP or, File Transfer Protocol program is designed to act like a dual file manager, similar to the one you already use if you have MS Windows running in your machine. The main difference is that this file manager has two connection windows rather than only one connection on one directory. When using an FTP program your screen is split in two, each half is opened to a different server, or computer. The screen on the left side of your monitor is open to your personal computer at home and the right side of the screen is open on what ever web site to which you want to upload or download data. The transfer can be made many ways, which we will cover in detail later on. However the simplest way is just to click and drag the file or files from one screen to the other. You can set up your Bulletproof FTP program to immediately transfer the files, or simply load them into a queue and when you have all the files in the queue, you can send them all at one time. There are lots of options. You will need a couple of important pieces of data to connect to a site. Among these are, the domain or host name, the logon, or user name, the user password, and in most cases a remote destination entry directory. With this information you can open your computer to any site in the world and transfer data between your machine and the other one. To make this tutorial more related to the operations of which you will be most concerned, i will make this instruction sheet set up for a practical problem of logging on to a translation home site. In this case i will use the Croatian translation team's site however these steps work for any site at all by changing the important data items of which i spoke earlier.

Getting the FTP program

The first step, as you might have guessed is to download and install the program. We are working with Bullet Proof FTP program in this tutorial but that should not matter either as all of the FTP programs are similar. It is a situation similar to driving a car. If you have a standard shift, or an automatic transmission the precise motions will be different but the basic operation will be the same and in this case the installation and set up should also be very much the same. To down load the program from the Internet, go to this link, "http://bpftp.com/", and click on the "download now" button that you find in the middle of the page. This is a self extracting file and once you have it downloaded to your computer all you need to do for the installation is to first close all other programs you have running. Next go to the location to which you have downloaded the "bpftp.exe" file and double click on the file name. Your installation program will take over from there and all you need to do is follow the prompts.

     Now that you have the program installed, it is time to set it up to connect to your site. We will be using the Croatian site for this example. Step one, of course, must be to open the program. You should find a new icon on your desktop screen that looks like this graphic. Double click on this icon and you will open the BPFTP program to the start up screen. At the top of this screen is a long line of icons, running the length of the opening menu. The only icons you will be concerned with at this time are the first few, shown below

Setting up

The 4th icon from the left, looking like two computer monitors, is the one that will bring up your established connections list. At this time it is empty except for what the authors of the software have put there. Take a look at the illustration below and you till see that i have changed my opening list to only show two folders. lightworker and personal sites.

These three folders i created just the way you would in your file manager, the windows explorer. You may not have a need for the Private Sites unless you are going to develop your web page. But even then, it will be on the lightworker server.

Below is what the fillen in contact sheet looks like when it is created.  I placed my cursor into the folder in which i want to add the site, and simply replace anything that was in the menu previously.  When finished, click on the "Add/Update" button and it will be saved.

The "Site Name" in this case i am calling Croatian site. The Initial local Directory is most easily selected by clicking on the browse button at the right of the box and then walking through the directory tree to the place where you have set up your folders for your site. If you have not done that yet, then don't worry, we can do this later on. Just leave that part blank if you don't have a set up like i show in this illustration. If you want everything to work for you with the minimum of problems i suggest you set up the directory path as i have show it here. You may select any drive you wish to place these folders, i used my "C:\" drive but you can use any one you wish as long as all the sub-directories look like they do here, following the C:\ . This is the way they are set up on the lightworker.com server also. The next item is the Site Address, which is the domain or host name, "Croatian.lwstaff.com". The initial remote directory is "/web/" and your login, or user name is "Croatian". Notice that it is all small letters. This is important because the Internet is "case sensitive" which means you must use small letters and large ones in their exact same way you see them written here. If you were to capitalize the first letter of the login, it would not work and you would not be able to connect. The same is true for the password. In this illustration, it is only a bunch of asterisk but what you would be typing in would be the login spelled backwards with the last letter "i" capitalized. The password would then be, "naitaorC". Or, Croatian, spelled backward and the capital restored to the last letter (which would be the first when read backward). That is all the data you need to log on to your site. If you were on another team, say the Norwegian one for example your logon would be, "norwegian" and your password, "naigewroN". See how it works? The logon is the name of the language, spelled in English and with all small letters. The password is the logon spelled backward with the last letter capitalized. This is the way ALL of the translation sites are set up. After you have entered all the information into the boxes provided on this dialog box, you need to click on the "Add/update" selection to record this logon and add it to your list. In the future, all you will need to do is to click on the list item called Croatian site at which time it will change appearance and become selected, next click on "connect" and you will not have to do any more than that to log on, once your listing is recorded.

Connecting to your site

   When you have either double clicked on Croatian site, or single clicked and then clicked connect, you will be brought to the Croatian site, which will look like this next illustration.

You will notice that the left side of the screen has your local computer directory showing and the right side of the screen shows only /httpdocs/, which is the root home site of the Croatian team. Each team site has a personal folder, in the event the owner knows how to use the FTP program and wants to develop their web site, which is contained within the folders.  Here you see the home personal sites for Miriana and Natalia along with the team's home page, titled "index.html" and their address book.
   When a translator wants to develop their site they set up their computer with the data they want to upload to their sites.  To transfer anything from your comuter to the remote machine you can drag it across the screen and drop it on the other server, but that is not the only way.

Most used icon commands

 Before we get into the actual transferring of files, let us look again at the more important icons on the command menu for the FTP program. The only significant ones are the third from the left, that red ball with the x in it stops all action that the program is performing at the time. This is your "panic button" when you realize you made a mistake and the transfer is already started. This button will stop all action.

   The next important icon is the double monitor screens that we used to set up the site manager. Forget about the next two, icons they are minor. One clears all entries and the other brings you up the setup wizard and gives you an alternate way to set up a site. The two folder looking icons that follow are for uploading and downloading. The first one with the arrow pointing down is the download button, and the one with the arrow pointing up is the upload button. When you have selected several files for either uploading or downloading then clicking on these icons will put those items into the transfer queue. You can forget abut the clock icon and go right to the green ball with the word "go" in it. This is the activator that will cause all of the files in the transfer queue to be either uploaded or down loaded, depending on which folder / arrow icon you previously clicked. There are options you can select to upload or down load instantly instead of being placed into a transfer queue, and we will cover that later on.

The menu at left is found by clicking on Options in the header bar of BPFTP and then selecting General and then Toggles. This is where you can change the method of uploading or downloading. Here is it set for putting items in a queue for transferring and leaving them there until the green go button is clicked. If you want the files to go to their destination as soon as you double click them, then check off the second trigger switch on the pull down menu shown at left. The switch that says, "Automatically start transferring" Don't be afraid to experiment with this menu and try other options. There is also a help file at the top of the BPFTP screen menu bar also that will give you more information on the selections. Look at the other options on the menu but be careful with the Firewall,

settings if you do not understand the options found there. The sound tab on the menu pictured here is another place you might like to experiment with this menu also. It allows you to assign a sound file to the upload, download and activation actions. When the action is completed the sound file is heard.

    These then, are the basics of your BPFTP program. This should give you enough information to set up and operate your file transfer routine and log on to your team sites. Teams other than the Croatian team will have to change a few items on the set up menu, but that is explained in that area and it is just a substitution of names, logons and passwords, that reflect the new language. The principles remain the same as do all the procedures. If you need additional help with this program then please write to me at "jp@lightworker.com" and i will do my best to help you find solutions.

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