Fetch makes it easy to edit server files (using any application you like), but sometimes you don't want to open the file, you just want to take a peek at it.

Apple responded to a similar need in the Finder by introducing the Quick Look feature in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Tapping the space bar displays a preview of the selected file (or files), and tapping it again dismisses that preview. Quick Look can preview text, images, videos, audio, and many other documents, including those created by Microsoft Word and Excel. And the Quick Look system is extensible: as developers release Quick Look plugins, more and more file types are supported.

We've had Quick Look support in Fetch since releasing 5.5 last June. Just as in the Finder, tapping the space bar (or clicking the Quick Look button, or choosing the RemoteQuick Look menu command) shows a Quick Look preview of the selected file on the server. Of course Fetch has to download the file contents before they can be previewed, but that happens automatically (and Fetch remembers the file so that it doesn't have to be re-downloaded if you preview the file again). Double-clicking in the Quick Look window opens the file in the appropriate application.

Thanks to new support in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, we were able to improve Fetch's Quick Look behavior as of Fetch 5.5.2. Now, on Snow Leopard, you can switch back and forth between viewing a bunch of files as thumbnails or as a slideshow, and you can add previewed images to iPhoto.

One weakness we found with Quick Look in Fetch 5.5 has to do with its handling of text files. Quick Look does not support selecting text, so there is no way to copy a bunch of text out of the Quick Look preview in order to paste it in another application. To address this we added a View as Text command to Fetch 5.5.3. View as Text opens text files in separate windows, with support for selecting text.

Together, Quick Look and View as Text make previewing your files in Fetch easier than ever.

In How Reliable Is Reliable Enough? I wrote about the steps we took to make Fetch 5.5 more reliable, in particular its support for automatically resuming failed or stalled uploads. In the time since we released Fetch 5.5 we’ve heard from numerous users who’ve been helped by this feature. It is especially useful when transferring a large collection of files in many folders, for example a large web software package (e.g. WordPress or SugarCRM). In a big transfer there are hundreds of opportunities for one small part of the operation to stall or fail due to a server hiccup or network glitch. In versions of Fetch before 5.5, that would bring the entire transfer to a halt. Then you would be stuck figuring out what you still had left to transfer, or you might toss what you'd done and start over, just to be safe.

Fetch 5.5’s automatic resume feature fixed that problem for most uploads, but we heard about a few cases where it could do better. We also heard from users facing similar problems with large downloads. So in Fetch 5.6 we improved the performance for uploads, and extended the automatic resume feature to cover downloads as well. It also covers mirror transfers in either direction, and folder delete commands. We think we've eliminated nearly all of the common situations where a temporary glitch can cause a large operation to fail.

Please give Fetch 5.6 a try with your most challenging transfers, and let us know how it goes!

Etna, NH — Reliability is the watchword for Fetch 5.6, the latest version of the original Macintosh file transfer program, released today.

Transient errors or stalls can all too often cause a website update or large download to grind to a halt, wasting time and requiring tedious and error-prone manual intervention. Fetch 5.6 automatically resumes uploads, downloads, and mirror operations, to ensure that network glitches and server hiccups do not stand in the way of successful FTP or SFTP transfers.

Fetch 5.6 is a Universal binary, compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 or later, including Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and can be downloaded from http://fetchsoftworks.com.

Fetch 5.6 is free to try for 15 days, and a single-user license is $29. Upgrades are free for Fetch 5.5 users and customers who purchased Fetch after January 28, 2009; otherwise, upgrades are $10. Free licenses and upgrades are available for educational and charitable use.

I am a fan of the writer Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine, House) and a few years ago I picked up his then-latest book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. It tells the story of a doctor, Paul Farmer, who (along with friends Ophelia Dahl and Jim Yong Kim) created an organization called Partners In Health. PIH was founded to deliver high quality health care to the people of Haiti’s Central Plateau. Working with the people of Haiti, PIH’s efforts there have grown from a single clinic in 1985 to a system of hospitals, clinics, and community health workers that provided 2.6 million patient visits in 2009, all of them free of charge. It is a moving and inspiring story that convinced me to become a financial supporter of PIH’s work.

In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, Partners In Health is perhaps the largest functioning medical provider left in Haiti. Their own facilities are far enough from the epicenter to have escaped serious damage, and their trained medical teams have been working around the clock to treat survivors. If they can afford to purchase the supplies they need, they will be able to save thousands of lives, not only from earthquake injuries, but also from the infections and other public health threats that will emerge in the weeks and months ahead.

To help make that happen, Fetch Softworks is one of nearly 150 independent Mac and iPhone developers participating in Indie+Relief, a group fundraiser for Haiti. If you purchase a Fetch 5.5 license on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Partners In Health. If you already have a Fetch license, please take a look at the other applications that are for sale: you can pick up a great app and help Haiti at the same time. And if you do not need any software, please visit the PIH website, learn more about their work, make a donation, and spread the word.

Many thanks to Justin Williams of Second Gear Software for organizing Indie+Relief.

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who purchased Fetch 5.5 yesterday — you raised $3,742 for Partners In Health!

Hello from Italy!

While my Fetch colleagues are toiling away at their posts, I am taking a break from Fetch to have an adventure. I am one of ten developers from around the world gathered together in Venice, Italy by Command Guru to develop an iPhone app from scratch in seven days. If that were not enough, the entire experience is being streamed live at commandguru.com.

So if you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to produce the apps you use, you can tune in to watch us sketch, discuss, argue, and type our way to actual software. We have been at it for three days now, and it’s been great fun to work with this terrific group of developers, and to get instant feedback from viewers around the globe. Not to mention all the fantastic Italian food!

In honor of this unlikely event we’re offering an equally improbable promotion: a Fetch half-off sale. Today and tomorrow, December 10 and 11, 2009, you can get a 50% discount on Fetch by entering the coupon code COMMANDGURU.

Ciao!

Fetch 5.5.3, a bug-fix update to Fetch 5.5, is now available. This release fixes a number of problems reported by our users.

The changes in Fetch 5.5.3 include:

• Fixed Mac OS -8905 errors when opening Fetch or saving shortcuts on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
• Fixed rare freezes when quitting
• Fixed a problem where Fetch displayed the copy cursor when moving a file
• Fixed problem displaying file lists with Norwegian month names from vsFTPd servers
• Fixed a problem where items moved to a parent folder would sometimes not appear in the parent folder's file list
• Improved compatibility with certain versions of the VanDyke VShell server that send non-standard TYPE replies

For a complete list of changes, see the Fetch 5.5.3 Release Notes.

The Fetch 5.5.3 update is free if you purchased your Fetch license after January 28, 2009; otherwise an upgrade is $10, and a new license is $29.

Please download Fetch 5.5.3 from the Fetch Download page, or by choosing Check for Update… from the Fetch menu in an earlier version, and let us know what you think of the new release.

Fetch 5.5.3 is a Universal binary, compatible with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, including Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Fetch Softworks is pleased to announce Fetch 5.5.2, the latest version of the original Macintosh file transfer program. Fetch 5.5.2 has been updated to offer full compatibility with the newly released Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

This release improves the Quick Look feature introduced in Fetch 5, and adds two new features: a "View as Text" command and SOCKS support for SFTP connections.

Fetch 5.5.2 is a Universal binary, compatible with Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, including Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and can be downloaded from http://fetchsoftworks.com.

Fetch 5.5.2 is free to try for 15 days, and a single-user license is $29. Upgrades are free for customers who purchased Fetch after January 28, 2009; otherwise, upgrades are $10. Free licenses and upgrades are available for educational and charitable use.

Want to make a quick edit to that graphic on your webpage in Photoshop or Acorn with just one click? With Fetch 5.5, now you can.

That was Then…

Since Fetch 4, Fetch's Edit feature has let you open a file in an external editor, and have your changes be automatically uploaded back to the server. But it only worked with a select set of text editors that support the external editor protocol and GraphicConverter for image files. If all you wanted to do was edit your text files in one of the supported text editors, this worked well. But from the feedback we received, we knew that users wanted to edit with a wider range of applications, such as Dreamweaver for HTML files, and to edit other kinds of files, such as Microsoft Word documents.

…This is Now

Fetch 5.5's improved Edit command can do just that — now you can edit any kind of file on a server, using any application that supports opening and saving that file type. Just select a file in the Fetch file list, click the Edit button in the toolbar, and Fetch will download the file and open it in the appropriate application for that kind of file. Whenever you save, Fetch will notice and upload the revised file back to the server.

Choosing the Right Application

How does Fetch decide which application to use? It normally picks the default application for that kind of file, as specified by the Mac OS X Finder. But if you'd rather edit with another application, that's not a problem. Select a file, hold down the Option key, and click the Edit button. Fetch will ask you to choose another editor from a list of applications on your Mac that claim to support editing that kind of file. If you the application you want isn't in the list, you can choose it using the Other menu item. If you want to change the editor permanently, click the Remember this editor choice checkbox.

Or, if you prefer, you can also Control-click on a file and use the Edit With menu in the contextual menu to choose a different editor for this time only.

Want to edit images with Photoshop? HTML files with Dreamweaver? Spreadsheets with Excel? Fetch 5.5 will let you do that.

But What About TextEdit?

We're sorry to say there is one situation where a common Mac application isn't invited to the editor party… but it's for a good reason. We're often asked, “How can I make Fetch edit my webpage (HTML) files with TextEdit?” Our answer is, “You really don't want to do that.” Why would we say that? HTML file are text files… TextEdit is a free text editor that comes with Mac OS X… what's the problem?

TextEdit understands basic HTML, and when you open an HTML file in TextEdit, instead of showing you HTML code, it shows you formatted text. It's trying to offer you What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editing. But unfortunately, there's a lot of HTML that TextEdit doesn't understand. And when you save your HTML file after editing it, TextEdit just throws away all the parts it didn't understand, usually resulting in data loss and a webpage that doesn't look or work the way you expect it to.

And that's why Fetch doesn't offer TextEdit as a choice for editing HTML files. (It's fine for files that really are just plain text, and Fetch offers TextEdit as an editor for them.) Instead, if you're looking for a good, free text editor, we recommend TextWrangler from our friends at Bare Bones Software.

Every Editor is a Winner

But otherwise, if an application supports editing a file, it will work with the Fetch Edit command. Regardless of which application you use — happy editing!

I think of Fetch as a reliable FTP client.

For twenty years we've tuned and tweaked its code to handle new situations, and users regularly tell us that Fetch has worked when other alternatives didn’t. Nonetheless, from time to time we have received a particular and troubling sort of user report.

The Quarry

The user would be uploading a big file, or a bunch of files, and somewhere in the process the upload would stall, or fail with an error. It didn’t happen every time, or always in the same place, and my colleagues and I could never reproduce it ourselves. Most users would never see this issue — out of the hundreds of thousands of Fetch users we were only getting two or three reports a month. But we knew that for every user who took the time to contact us there were probably several more who didn’t.

Reliable Unreliability

I was itching to go after this problem; writing some code to make a user’s life a little better is the best part about being a programmer. But first I needed to get a good look at it. If I couldn’t reproduce the problem, my attempted solutions would be shots in the dark, and I’d never be sure that I’d actually fixed it. I needed a reliable way to make Fetch behave unreliably.

10,000 Files To Fetch On A Wall

We never saw this problem with the server we used for much of our Fetch testing, which (like our website) is hosted at Pair Networks. For the first time I cursed Pair’s excellent reliability. Our support staff started asking users who reported these problems where they were hosting their sites, and I bought accounts from each company. We are now the proud owners of accounts at some of the worst hosting providers around. Since the problem didn’t happen all the time, or even most of the time, I wrote scripts to upload 10,000 files to each of our many test accounts, one after another, hoping that the problem would appear (preferably before the Comcast bandwidth police appeared at my door).

Hosting From Hell

After some false alarms I finally hit the jackpot — a hosting service that randomly but reliably failed every time I tried our standard 10,000 file upload. I tried uploading with other FTP clients, and they all failed as well. The best part was that it failed in completely unpredictable ways: sometimes during a transfer, sometimes setting up the transfer, sometimes getting a file list, sometimes deleting files. I never knew how it would break, but I knew that if I tried to upload 10,000 files it was sure to fail in some way. It was a hosting service you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, and I was thrilled to find it.

Step by step I refined Fetch’s error handling to keep it going in the face of the demonic server’s errors. Several times I was sure that I’d fixed the last remaining issue, only to have another appear. Our QA engineer, Doug Grinbergs, and I varied our test routine, uploading lots of small files, lots of empty folders and very deep hierarchies of 100,000 folders.

Sigmas

At last I had a Fetch version that would reliably upload 10,000 files to all of our test servers, including the cursed one. In fact I ran tests until I saw one million straight uploads to that server without an error. Big businesses like Motorola and GE talk about reducing the rate of defects to under 3.4 in a million (they call it Six Sigmas™). When those million uploads were done I felt that we’d earned our sigmas.

But all this work was based on a hypothesis, that the solution to uploading problems with our cursed test server was also the solution to the more elusive problems seen by some of our users. We started sending a pre-release Fetch version to every user who reported a similar sounding problem, and asking them to try it. At first we found a few more issues, which we were able to address. And then ... nothing but positive feedback. We’ve now been distributing these special versions for over a year. In all that time we’ve yet to come across a user whose random upload problems weren’t solved by the new code.

Today we’re releasing Fetch 5.5, and we’ll find out if we can keep that streak going with many, many more users. I can’t wait.