Using Netscape for FTP

FTP can be used to copy files to and from a remote machine. There are several ways to do this, like using command line FTP (Opens in this window Command line FTP), using your browser's FTP capabilities, or using one of the freeware programs available on the net.

If you have Netscape 2 or above (I used to have Netscape 3 and it worked for me), you'll be able to use Netscape for FTP. Note: the description given below is based on Netscape 3 in a Windows environment. It only describes how to upload files to a remote machine, not how to download them.

The easy way

This is (as far as I know) the easiest way of using Netscape for FTP.

  1. Start with entering the following address in Netscape's 'location' box:
    ftp://your-user-id:your-password@ftp.servername.com/
  2. Near the top of your screen you'll find a number of options, like 'File', 'Edit', 'View', 'Go', 'Bookmarks', etc. The exact layout may depend on the Netscape version that you're using. Click 'File'.
  3. Clicking 'File' will open a pull-down menu, with 'Upload File...' as one of the options. Click 'Upload File...'.
  4. Clicking 'Upload File...' will open a window where you can browse your hard-disk for the files you want to upload. Select the files you want to upload by right-clicking. The drawback of this method is that you can only upload one file at a time. If you have a large number of files to upload the 'less easy way' may be better.

The less easy way

If the easy way doesn't work, for whatever reason, here's an alternative.

  1. Start with entering the following address in Netscape's 'location' box:
    ftp://your-user-id:your-password@ftp.servername.com/
  2. Open Windows Explorer to browse the files on your hard disk. Make sure that the window doesn't cover your entire screen, and you can still see Netscape's location box.
  3. Use Windows Explorer to find the directory where the files are that you want to upload. Left-click on the first file you want to upload, and shift-left-click on the last file. You will see that these files and all between them are 'marked' now.
  4. Use the mouse to drag the 'marked' files to Netscape's location box. Once you're there, you'll see a little + appearing beside your mouse pointer. Let go of the mouse button. If necessary, click the 'Netscape' button at the bottom of your screen to get the Netscape window to the foreground.
  5. At this stage you get a little pop-up box asking you 'Do you want to upload the dragged files to the FTP server?' Hit 'OK'. Do not hit 'Cancel', as this may result in possible damage to existing files on the remote machine.
  6. Subsequently the system will tell you that it's uploading your files, and, eventually, that the job was completed successfully.

Warning

If you use Netscape FTP to replace an existing page on the remote machine with a new version, and somehow the transfer is interrupted (either you decide to cancel in stead of to upload, or Netscape gets an abend), it's possible that the existing version of your page on the remote machine is 'emptied' and set to 0 bytes, which will result in a 'document contains no data' error message when you try to access it through your browser. Retrying the upload will generally solve the problem.



Menu | Exit | Meta | Talk

With the exceptions listed here, all content © 2001-2004 D9D1E2.COM. Please read the disclaimer, copyright information and terms of use. On this page Transitional HTML 4.01 and CSS 1 are used. If you're seeing this text you either have CSS switched off in your browser, or you're using a browser that can't handle CSS. If you're using an older browser version, you might want to consider upgrading.