[Pro] Freeway Uploads

Hi Guys

As we know Freeway has a rather unusual way of uploading sites and files.

The process always wants to re-upload files that already sit on the server - not only does take (waste) a great deal of time it can cause timeout issues if the internet connection is not 100% stable.

I am curious to learn if anybody routinely uses an alternative method for uploading.

For example are there users that rely exclusively on Transmit for uploading their Freeway sites ?

I’d be very pleased to hear and learn from the experiences.

Regards

Paul


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For me, as an alternative Transmit -by far- is the most reliable FTP client, together with his big brother Coda.

Freeway does only upload files that have been changed since its last upload. It will check all files first though to determine which files to upload. FW has been a bit unreliable in the past, but nowadays I don’t run into issues anymore.

Due to my need for clean(er) and small(er) files I always upload via Transmit after cleaning up the HTML output files and optimizing the image files. Over here in Holland the internet is rather fast over land (I have 120Mb down and 12Mb up myself) and through the air (4G), but that’s just my (only) motivation to use a FTP client over Freeway’s internal FTP function.

Richard


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On 11 Jan 2015, at 13:49, Richard van Heukelum wrote:

Freeway does only upload files that have been changed since its last
upload.

What if you make Freeway rebuild the entire site? The date of all files
are then, I presume, set to today’s date and thus, if Freeway’s
FTP-engine uses date as one of its criteria, it would upload every file,
one should think. Not?

Leif Halvard Silli


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I use Patience… lots of patience.


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The process always wants to re-upload files that already sit on the server

My first question is - What version of FW as there were some issues with earlier versions that should have been dealt with by now.

2nd - what actions are you using as there are some that do ‘dirty’ each page at Publish time. One of those that I can think of is the Link to Page action

David


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Thanks for the responses guys !!

Since posting I attempted several more times to upload each attempt meeting with further timeouts.

I decided therefore to “Publish” to a newly created local file and use the "published results’ as the template to synchronize with my server using Transmit.

The upload was successful.

I feel far more in control using Transmit and can clearly identify what is and what is not present both in the local and remote file locales.

In terms of Actions that are used on my site Dave the following exist :

CSS Corners
Meta Plus
Fav Icon
Google Analytics
Site Mapper
Simple Site Search


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Freeway is designed to upload only files that differ from the last upload. This data is collected by Freeway at the very end of the publishing process, and stored in a file called _siteinfo, which lives in the Site Folder of each Freeway project. This is why it is important to allow the uploading process to finish completely (the Upload dialog will go away of its own accord). I am pretty sure this database only tracks the pages. It assumes that if anything at all changed about the page, all of its content (images, plug-in content like Flash or movies, etc.) will also need to be uploaded as well. I believe the tracking is done only at the page level, not the individual asset level – that’s the way it appears to work to me.

As long as your projects each have their own site folder, you should not have any collisions with this process. I can imagine that you might end up with a mess if more than one Freeway document writes into the same folder on your Mac. Try to figure out if that is possible in your case.

Before uploading, Freeway checks the timestamps of the files it created in the Site Folder with those that it finds on the server, and will allow a certain number of seconds’ difference between them before deciding that the file needs to be uploaded.

Another possible reason that this process can fail is if your Mac’s clock drifts off of the global standard by an appreciable amount. A failing motherboard clock battery can cause that to happen, although most Macs are set up to align with the global NTP standard by default (System Preferences / Date and Time / Set date and time automatically … [time.apple.com]). Most servers are time-synched with NTP as well, so if everyone agrees what time it is, everyone can also agree whether a file is “stale” or not.

Before you decide the feature is broken, make a new site from scratch, upload it to a folder on your server, change some content on one page, and upload again. You should see just that one page change.

Finally, Freeway is incredibly cautious about changes which touch multiple pages. Let’s say you have external stylesheets enabled, and you make a chance to a style which affects the font color or size on one page. If you made that change through the Edit Styles dialog (rather than in the Inspector, where your changes would only “touch” that one page) then you will have just “dirtied” all the other pages in the site that use that same global stylesheet. Freeway does this because a style change can also affect page geometry, so instead of just updating the stylesheet itself, it also re-publishes all the pages that link to it, which changes their timestamp and forces them to be uploaded next time. You will know this is going to happen if you see a • bullet appear next to the name of the page in the Site pane. Even though you didn’t touch the content of that page, you did change it through the linked stylesheet. The same holds true (more understandably) for any changes that you make within the Master Page(s) for the site. Any changes there trickle down to all child pages of each Master, and that means another full upload.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 9:06 AM, DeltaDave email@hidden wrote:

The process always wants to re-upload files that already sit on the server

My first question is - What version of FW as there were some issues with earlier versions that should have been dealt with by now.

2nd - what actions are you using as there are some that do ‘dirty’ each page at Publish time. One of those that I can think of is the Link to Page action

David


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I feel far more in control using Transmit and can clearly identify what is and what is not present

Maybe you can see what is present but can you see if a graphic has been modified - its name wont change!

This especially applies to any Graphic text.

Certainly Transmit has a synchronise feature that does a great job if you set it up correctly but FW has all that built in.

You didn’t say what version of FW you were using.

D


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Dave

I am using the latest 7.0.1 (7046) build - sorry for the omission.

Please correct me if I am wrong but surely as I have “Published” the entire site to a local folder independent of the FW document folder and use that as the reference for comparing te local to the remote all such graphics , css etc would be captured within the local folder ??

Rgds
Paul


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No, publishing locally is just one side of the equation. If you then upload in Freeway, and allow that upload to complete entirely, then the next time you upload, you will only send the files that changed from the last upload. The _siteinfo database is updated as the very last step in the Freeway upload process.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 11:26 AM, Paul Rowe email@hidden wrote:

Dave

I am using the latest 7.0.1 (7046) build - sorry for the omission.

Please correct me if I am wrong but surely as I have “Published” the entire site to a local folder independent of the FW document folder and use that as the reference for comparing te local to the remote all such graphics , css etc would be captured within the local folder ??

Rgds
Paul


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My point is that a visual comparison of the local and server folder contents is not enough.

You either upload everything or let FW or Transmit do their Synchronise thing to ensure that you get EVERYTHING.

Personally the way I work is to let FW handle the upload (on all my sites) however I use External links to larger Media files such as Movies, larger PDFs etc which I upload with Transmit.

That way I can pretty well ensure that an intermittent/dodgy internet connection will not Time Out on those larger file uploads.

The other thing I would look at in your site is your image file sizes - if they are too large then you also may experience problems if your internet connection is iffy. A good rule of thumb should be that no individual image file size should be any bigger than a few hundred k. If you have files that are 0.5Mb or larger then these are too big.

D


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Since posting I attempted several more times to upload each attempt
meeting with further timeouts.

Has anyone covered the upload mode options that Freeway has, such as
Passive mode?

I’ve a couple sites which, likely due to actions, upload several pages of
resources regardless of any changes. Also, network speed may vary due to
great distances or time of day. At upload time, I take a coffee break or
watch a movie, or go for a bike ride.


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Passive refers to FTP protocols, and it does not impact the actual business of uploading from Freeway in any manner. A passive FTP server relies on the sending computer to work out what port to use, while a non-passive server will only accept uploads at a port of its own nomination. This is entirely outside of the scope of whether Freeway considers a file on the server to be out of date or not.

Freeway’s Automatic mode first tries Passive (the most common method) and then falls back to non-passive if that fails.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 12:43 PM, Ernie Simpson email@hidden wrote:

Since posting I attempted several more times to upload each attempt
meeting with further timeouts.

Has anyone covered the upload mode options that Freeway has, such as
Passive mode?

I’ve a couple sites which, likely due to actions, upload several pages of
resources regardless of any changes. Also, network speed may vary due to
great distances or time of day. At upload time, I take a coffee break or
watch a movie, or go for a bike ride.


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And in any case, you should not be using FTP at all. It’s hopelessly insecure – your username and password (often your login credentials for the server itself) are sent over the wire (or air, in that dodgy coffee shop’s “free” WiFi) in plain text. You will be p0wned, or whatever it is the kids say these days.

Use SFTP. If your host does not offer that, tell them you will leave them if they don’t. And leave, if they don’t.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 1:02 PM, Walter Lee Davis email@hidden wrote:

Passive refers to FTP protocols, and it does not impact the actual business of uploading from Freeway in any manner. A passive FTP server relies on the sending computer to work out what port to use, while a non-passive server will only accept uploads at a port of its own nomination. This is entirely outside of the scope of whether Freeway considers a file on the server to be out of date or not.

Freeway’s Automatic mode first tries Passive (the most common method) and then falls back to non-passive if that fails.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 12:43 PM, Ernie Simpson email@hidden wrote:

Since posting I attempted several more times to upload each attempt
meeting with further timeouts.

Has anyone covered the upload mode options that Freeway has, such as
Passive mode?

I’ve a couple sites which, likely due to actions, upload several pages of
resources regardless of any changes. Also, network speed may vary due to
great distances or time of day. At upload time, I take a coffee break or
watch a movie, or go for a bike ride.


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I can’t remember, and I’m not at my Mac, but does FW7 support SSH Keys?

Todd
https://xiiro.com

Use SFTP


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It should, it uses LibCurl under the hood. But there’s no interface for setting that option (if you’re used to the little key icon in Transmit) which would let you choose a .pem file (for uploads to AWS, for example). If your public rsa key is in the server’s authorized_keys file, then it should just work.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 1:29 PM, Todd email@hidden wrote:

I can’t remember, and I’m not at my Mac, but does FW7 support SSH Keys?

Todd
https://xiiro.com

Use SFTP


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Has anyone covered the upload mode options that Freeway has, such as Passive mode?

I think that Ernies point refers to the fact that some Servers get on better with Passive mode while others prefer Non-Passive or Auto and that Paul should try toggling between them to see if he has more success with one than the other.

D


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Dave

I have tried both passive and non-passive alongside auto all with similar results.

The extremely frustrating thing with FW uploads was demonstrated again when after some 2 hrs the upload failed with just several files remaining.

This loss of time is simply not acceptable.

I do accept your point that ALL changed files need to be uploaded - it is for this reason that all the folders (css - resources - html files etc) are checked for syncing.

This process however takes just several minutes compared to FW’s hours.


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You should get in touch with support(a)softpress.com and see what they suggest. At the least, turn on FTP logging in Freeway (File / Upload - bottom left corner of the dialog) because they will surely want to see that.

Walter

On Jan 11, 2015, at 9:35 PM, Paul Rowe email@hidden wrote:

Dave

I have tried both passive and non-passive alongside auto all with similar results.

The extremely frustrating thing with FW uploads was demonstrated again when after some 2 hrs the upload failed with just several files remaining.

This loss of time is simply not acceptable.

I do accept your point that ALL changed files need to be uploaded - it is for this reason that all the folders (css - resources - html files etc) are checked for syncing.

This process however takes just several minutes compared to FW’s hours.


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To all Gentlemen that have contributed to this discussion I salute you all.

Thanks for your time , insight and comments - its greatly appreciated.


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