feature request: remote and local dirs for each stored sessi

I am requesting a remote and local folder/directory for each stored session, rather than having one main remote+local folder set.

It really doesn't make sense to have one main directory to organize all your transfers in for all sessions. I have about 40 places I go to for different things, and I keep my hard disk organized and structured in such a way that different directories in different places are for different things for development purposes.
Some are OpenOffice.org packages which I distribute. some are IRS tax publications, which go somewhere else. Some are linux distributions. etc. Each has its own place. and each session has a specific remote directory that it needs to go to. I can't make use of a common remote directory, because they are all different for every server! for instance, hosting places do not have /pub, but they do have /public_html or /home/public_html depending on the server.

it would be best if each session had its own local and remote directory/folder that you could fill in/browse to.

Please read FAQ. If that does not help, come back.

I tried the dir FAQ. It needs to be rewritten. You don't leave the Directories page to go to the Sessions tab in the dialog like it says. Stay in Directories and click the Save... button at the bottom.

Besides, WinSCP decided to "forget" the directories settings I saved every time. This is a bug!

If you design the program correctly, you won't need to refer hardly anyone to a FAQ. It will be intuitive. The only thing you will need to do is define terms.

But in all seriousness, this is so user-unfriendly and counter-intuitive to have the directories disassociated from the sessions. The directory entries should be within each session's dialog page.
Is this making any usability sense?

I am trying to make a change request, not a help request, though I underhand better now how your program works - it shouldn't be this hard to figure out.

So just out of curiosity, why is it when I save session info, that the program exits? this is also counter-productive, since I have about 20 sessions to enter in, and I don't want to have to restart winscp 20 times to do it.
If I click save, I mean save, not close. If I wanted to close, I would have clicked close. another bug.

jmichae3 wrote:

I tried the dir FAQ. It needs to be rewritten. You don't leave the Directories page to go to the Sessions tab in the dialog like it says. Stay in Directories and click the Save... button at the bottom.

OK, done. Saving session has changed since the FAQ was written.

Besides, WinSCP decided to "forget" the directories settings I saved every time. This is a bug!

I do not understand. When does it forget them?

If you design the program correctly, you won't need to refer hardly anyone to a FAQ. It will be intuitive. The only thing you will need to do is define terms.

So how would you design it?

But in all seriousness, this is so user-unfriendly and counter-intuitive to have the directories disassociated from the sessions. The directory entries should be within each session's dialog page.

It is. I do not understand where do you see disassociation.

So just out of curiosity, why is it when I save session info, that the program exits?

It does not. At least not for me. And noone has reported this before. Can you describe step by step how to achieve this?

martin wrote:

I do not understand. When does it forget them?

when I save to a session.
here is the problem. when I save to a session, either the directory or the session info is blanked, or both. what I tried, not knowing how the program worked, was
1. starting winscp
2. clicking on the session I wanted
3. clicking on the directory tab.
this does not work. the directories are then empty. I see in hindsight what I did wrong.
what should be in the manual is:
1. if you haven't created a session already, create a session by clicking on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree, then click the New button, name the session and fill in the parameters.
2. click on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree.
2. click on a session.
3. click the Edit button.
4. click the Environment|Directories tab in the tree.
5. edit the parameters.
6. click the Save... button.
7. save as the session you picked earlier using the drop-down list.

martin wrote:

So how would you design it?

- directory settings moved from separate panel to session parameters panel.
- automatic recovery from connection failure as the default (it happens a lot on WiMAX, sattelite, dialup, and other internet connection types)
- ability to pause queue and resume later
- visible queue and automatic background mode as default
- show filesize as part of upload/download stats (no surprises)
- automatic resume connection+transfer on failure, no questions asked as an option (I think your program kind of does this, but it throws up a dialog, and says "connection failure, software abort" and then starts your download/upload all over again from scratch if you do anything about the dialog, but resume is happening in the background anyway if you don't)
- button for queue pause/resume
- save or restore queue. this means the session too.
- double-click uploads/downloads by default.
- I shouldn't be forced to exit the program to start another connection. this shouldn't be a 1-connection pony. If this is not the case, reword your preferences.

essentially, the program should be as automatic as possible. I shouldn't have to play around with it to get it to work the first time. and it should be as easy to use for everyone as possible (at least as far as an FTP program goes).

martin wrote:

It is. I do not understand where do you see disassociation.

having the directories parameters page completely separate from the session parameters page, and having to jump through hoops in order to get the directories for a session saved. bring them together into one parameter page. I know I am repeating myself a lot.

It does not. At least not for me. And noone has reported this before. Can you describe step by step how to achieve this?

It's not something I can reproduce. I probably made some mistakes, being new to the program.

jmichae3 wrote:

what should be in the manual is:
1. if you haven't created a session already, create a session by clicking on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree, then click the New button, name the session and fill in the parameters.
2. click on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree.
2. click on a session.
3. click the Edit button.
4. click the Environment|Directories tab in the tree.
5. edit the parameters.
6. click the Save... button.
7. save as the session you picked earlier using the drop-down list.

You do not have to do it in two steps. Just go to Session tab, fill in, go to Directories tab, fill in, save.

jmichae3 wrote:

- directory settings moved from separate panel to session parameters panel.

That's just your preference, that you want these parameter to be set together. Others may want to change other session options more frequently. I cannot fit everything on the same panel.

- automatic recovery from connection failure as the default (it happens a lot on WiMAX, sattelite, dialup, and other internet connection types)

It does.

- ability to pause queue and resume later

See documentation.

- automatic resume connection+transfer on failure, no questions asked as an option (I think your program kind of does this, but it throws up a dialog, and says "connection failure, software abort" and then starts your download/upload all over again from scratch if you do anything about the dialog, but resume is happening in the background anyway if you don't)

It resumes the transfer if possible (the server supports it). If it does not for you and you believe your server supports it, please post a log file showing that.

- button for queue pause/resume

See doc a linked above.

- save or restore queue. this means the session too.

Maybe, if more people ask for that.

- double-click uploads/downloads by default.

See doc.

- I shouldn't be forced to exit the program to start another connection. this shouldn't be a 1-connection pony. If this is not the case, reword your preferences.

When are you forced to exit it to start another connection? When you close the last connection, login dialog pops up to allow you open new connection.

[quote="prikryl"]

jmichae3 wrote:

what should be in the manual is:
1. if you haven't created a session already, create a session by clicking on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree, then click the New button, name the session and fill in the parameters.
2. click on Session|Stored sessions tab in the tree.
2. click on a session.
3. click the Edit button.
4. click the Environment|Directories tab in the tree.
5. edit the parameters.
6. click the Save... button.
7. save as the session you picked earlier using the drop-down list.

You do not have to do it in two steps. Just go to Session tab, fill in, go to Directories tab, fill in, save.

but it doesn't work unless you click the edit button. I left that out earlier. I won't say anything more.