Web Site Publisher

Release History

Web Site Publisher is an intelligent FTP tool for publishing a web site to the web.

Release history - or what has changed and what has been added for each release:

June 2012 - version 2.3.0 build 2725

Minor update:

• Bug fix: Resolved issue where publishing could stop with the error "failed to create directory" if the "local image" option was used.
• Bug fix: The logic which determined whether a website needed updating did not correctly interpret a leading slash in the names of any folders (to ignore or exclude) as meaning off the root-folder. So it may have incorrectly indicated that a website needed updating or did not need updating.
• The text on the properties window of a website now contains a brief note that a leading backslash indicates that the folder or file is relative to the root. So '\log' (without the quotes) will match against the folder 'log' in the root (i.e. the top most directory) of the website, but not against '\some\log', whereas 'log' (without the leading back slash) will match against the name log where ever it is found.
• Change: If on the file exclusions (text file and permissions) a file name is specified with a leading backslash ("\") then it is treated as being relative to the root. This is different from the previous behaviour where there was always an implied wildcard added. For example "\sample.log" will only match against the file "sample.log" in the root, previously it would have matched against "sample.log" in any folder. Be aware that a wildcard can match against anything so "\*.log" will match against "\sample.log" and "folder\ano.log".
• When the turbo optimisation is used, any change to the website properties that could affect what is copied up will now cause the next publish to be non-turbo (with turbo thereafter) and if the status of the site is currently "Published" then this will change to "Needs publishing". The reason for this behavioural change is that publishing non-turbo is the only way to ensure that any changes to file or folder settings are correctly reflected up at the server. For instance, in earlier versions if you were using turbo and added '*.tmp' to the list of files to be deleted then any matching files would only be deleted if WSP worked out that it needed to rescan a folder, which meant that some files could have been missed.

May 2011 - version 2.2.0 build 2697

Minor update:

• Added the ability to export application settings. Whilst there are not many application settings these couldn't previously be exported and this capability has been added in response to a user request.
• Added ability to export settings for all websites at once to a single file (rather than just one at a time). This is useful for creating a backup and has been implemented in response to a user request.
• Bug fix: When creating a new site the site did not pick up the correct default setting of ignoring folders called _vti_cnf and _vti_pvt. This means that the content of these folders (should they exist) will have been copied up the the ftp server, whereas in most cases they should not be (as they contain internal information used by Microsoft Expression web or Microsoft Front page).
• Bug fix: When reconnecting after a timeout a possibility existed that it would incorrectly pick up which folder it was in. In a worst case scenario this could result in it copying some files to the wrong location.
• From this version Windows 9x is no longer formally supported (so Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME). As far as we are aware it should work on Windows 9x, and should anyone encounter an issue then we will do our best to support it.

December 2010 - version 2.1.5 build 2652

Minor update:

• Bug fix: When run Web Site Publisher restores its last position on the screen. Previously however if the monitor or screen resolution had been changed this meant that it could be restored off-screen. This is now allowed for and it checks that it is on screen.
• Bug fix: When exporting the settings for a website, the optimisation settings (such as turbo) were not previously exported which meant that when subsequently imported that the optimisations were all disabled.
• New feature: By default Web Site Publisher checks the status of each website at start up to determine whether it needs to be published. In response to a request this default behaviour can now be disabled: Tools → Options... then on the options dialog which opens, on the "Behaviour" tab you can now check or clear the option "Check status of websites on start-up". The default behaviour remains unchanged.
• New feature: By default Web Site Publisher cannot be moved off-screen. In response to a request this default behaviour can now be disabled: Tools → Options... then on the options dialog which opens, on the "Behaviour" tab you can now check or clear the option "Allow Web Site Publisher to be moved off-screen". The default behaviour remains unchanged.
• Enhancement: If a file has zero size both locally and on the server then it is never copied (regardless of file date stamps). This is because some FTP servers won't update a zero length file with another zero length file, thus even after a copy operation the file dates don't change.

Version 2.1.4 was a private beta, not formally released. It incorporated the following changes:

• Some minor corrections to the text of some of the comment properties - cosmetic changes only.
• Change to "Local image" option. The folder where the local image is maintained has been moved. It used to be based on the name of the server but is now based on the name given to the website. WSP should automatically move any previous image, but if you use the image for any other purpose then you should be aware of this change. This change is to allow WSP to support two or more websites which reside on the same server. It is worth remembering that for most users that the "Local image" option will
  be slower.

July 2010 - version 2.1.3 build 2617

Minor update:

• Bug fix: When setting files or folders to ignore, previously the characters "!" and "~" were rejected. These characters can legally form part of a file or folder name and are no longer excluded.
• New feature: Right clicking on any website in the list will now bring up a short menu with popular options on it (such as recheck-status, publish and properties).
• Bug fix: When viewing file exclusions (in website properties) in some scenarios the last line would not be empty which made it difficult to add additional entries (workarounds included pressing the tab key or restarting WSP).
• Bug fix: When copying via an intermediary file if the original could not be removed (which has only been observed on miss-configured Windows servers) then WSP could end up in a loop rather than failing.

Version 2.1.2 was a private beta, not formally released. It incorporated the following changes:

• Bug fix: On the website properties one of the optimisation options was "No optimisations this time, then Turbo thereafter" but this did not work and had the same effect as selecting "no optimisations". This is now fixed. This option allows a complete scan to be made the next time the site is published, and turbo after that.
• Bug fix: A timeout in the windows API was not being overridden which could result in copying of larger files failing when copying over slow connections.
• Change to some of the messages in the output log. Instead of "Obsolete file ..." and "Obsolete folder ..." WSP now reports "File not at source ..." and "Folder not at source ...". This change is to make it clearer what the message means.

October 2009 - version 2.1.1 build 2552

Minor update:

• Bug fix: When failing to connect the full message from the server was previously not always reported.
• Bug fix: The reported number of files at the server was incorrect. What was reported was the total number of files locally, not the number on the server. This could lead to the logic incorrectly indicating that a website needed updating when it did not.
• Slight enhancement to some of the internal logic, which might make it slightly faster in some cases.

December 2008 - version 2.1.0 build 2535

Minor update:

• The properties dialog now lists the FTP server and the folder on the FTP server separately. (By popular request.)
• It is now possible to specify whether the home folder on the FTP server is ignored. The default setting is that the publish folder is relative to the home folder, but this can now be changed so the publish folder is relative instead to the root. For many FTP servers the home and root are the same in which case this option will have no effect.

October 2008 - version 2.0.5 build 2496

Minor update:

• Behaviour change: If WSP fails to connect to the destination FTP server and asks you whether to try again, clicking [Cancel] will now stop a Publish-All whereas [No] will just cancel publishing of the current website.
• Slight change to the logic for when WSP will attempt to reconnect to overcome a problem. This should improve error handling and recovery.
• Publishing status ("Published", "Needs publishing", "Publishing" etc) are now colour coded: Green for up to date, Red for needs publishing, Orange checking. The status of the currently highlighted publication is not shown in colour (because it tended to get lost when the line was highlighted) so you will only notice this change if you have more than one publication.

May 2008 - version 2.0.4 build 2471

Minor update:

• Bug fix: Copyright date shown in About box is now correct. (It said 2007 whereas it should have been 2008.)
• Slight optimisation of some logic.

April 2008 - version 2.0.3 build 2465

New features of this release:

• The expiry date has been removed. This version will now no longer expire.
• WSP now includes an option to check for an update. This function is available under the Tools menu, select "Check for update...". This connects to the hosting web-server and checks whether an update is available. If an update is available then you have the option to download it. The presence of updates are not checked automatically so please remember to check occasionally.
• What's happened to turbo? The turbo option has been removed from the main dialog and moved to the new "optimisations" tab of the web site properties. This means that each website can individually have turbo switched on or off. The default setting is off, so you are advised to consider explicitly switching turbo on for each website.
• The FTP connection logic is now more visible. This allows the user to select between Active and Passive FTP. These settings can be found on the "FTP Parameters" tab of the web site properties. The default is still "Auto", which causes WSP to connect using Passive and then Active if the connection fails.
• Sites can be disabled within WSP and when a site is disabled, it is now displayed greyed-out in the list of sites.
• The default setting for all websites is now to ignore any folders called "_vti_cnf" or "_vti_pvt". These are folders generated by FrontPage which it uses to store information that FrontPage uses but which are not needed on the website. For people using FrontPage it would be worth considering whether these directories (if they exist at the server) should be removed, and you can accomplish this by changing the settings for these folders from "Ignore" to "Remove".
• Behaviour change: Previously any sub-folder specified as part of the target destination on an FTP server was always treated as an offset to the initial folder you were placed in when connecting. For example, if publishing to www.cryer.co.uk/public_html then if the FTP server were to place the user in \www then WSP would end up publishing to \www\public_html. As of now the behaviour is that the folder specified is taken as absolute, to www.cryer.co.uk/public_html always publishes to \public_html regardless. For the vast majority of websites this change will have no effect, but for a minority you will need to review the FTP address.
• New optimisation option "image". This is intended to be used for those websites where the local image is generated by a method that means that the dates of files and folders cannot be relied upon as an indication of what files have been changed. This works by taking a copy of the website and copying files if the contents of those files is different. It works using a byte by byte comparison rather than relying on files dates. The disadvantage of "image" is that it utilizes disk space equivalent to that of the website, and it is generally slower - although if file dates cannot be relied upon as an indication of change then "image" will be considerably faster than the alternative of copying every file up to the server.
• When doing a publish-all, any errors are reported but the publishing of other sites continues without waiting for the user to respond to the error message.

Earlier versions of Web Site Publisher incorporated an expiry date (as a simple means to encourage users to upgrade to the latest version). All versions prior to v2.0.3 will have expired, and the release history of those expired versions is available here.

All versions of Web Site Publisher provide a fast a speedy way of uploading changes to your website from your local PC to your web-server. It can be used with any type of website. It is used to update this website. It is used by hobbyists and professionals alike, for family history sites, technical sites, news sites and many more. In fact your can use Web Site Publisher to upload any type of website.