© Copyright Robert Vasvari, 1993-2008.

RELEASE NOTES for version 4.4.6

RBrowser 4.4.6 was built on MacosX 10.4 (Tiger) and it will not run on earlier OSX versions. This version is compatible with Leopard (10.5). RBrowser is distributed in a Universal Binary version, so it will run on both Intel or PPC macs.

What is new in 4.4.6:

• Bugfixes in filetransfers to other Macs
• Shelf icons are no longer removed if the file they represent go away. This will kepp shortcuts of removable drives on the shelf.
• Fixes in the sync engine.

Access to hosts with Non ASCII character sets (SHIFT JIS, etc..): In order to ensure that RBrowser will work properly with files whose names contain non-ascii characters, be sure to set the character set of the host properly in the Site Preferences for that host. This can be done before the initial login by filling out the host/username then click Site Preferences.

Slow Startup or Licensing Problems:

If RBrowser is very slow to start up, that can have some common reasons. If you experience that problem, please read the following carefully and try to determine which one applies in your case by process of elimination.

Checksum Policy: First off, why is this option needed? Checksum is the best way to tell if a file has changed. That is true, however, checksums especially on large files, can take a long time. It is not always necessary, since if there is realiable metadata such as size and modification date, then it can be determined without the checksum if the file has been modified. It is very rare that a file's contents could change without changes in the size and mod date. In FTP the metadata is not reliable because the server tends to trash mod dates, but cheksums are not available in FTP anyway. Checksums can best be used in situations where the user feels that some changes might be ignored in local or remote syncs involving SFTP ocnnections. The checksum policy options are:

• Automatic - means AASync will determine whether checksums are necessary. This is the default setting. In this case, LTL syncs do not do checksum because it is not necessary, RTL or LTR sync will do checksums if the SFTP protocol is used.
• Always - checksums always computed wherever available.
• Never - checksums are not used at all.

Remote-to-Local sync using FTP:
FTP is a very poor protocol, and does not allow an error free comparison of files, due to the fact that FTP servers trash mod dates during upload, and allow no checksums. Due to these limitations, RtL sync in this case may not work correctly in some cases. With most FTP servers, mod date and size changes can be detected. One must test these servers before production use, to make sure sync ops work as expected.

If you decide to send us any feedback an error report, please observe the Report Submission Guidelines so we can help you better in diagnosing the problem. Your cooperation is much appreciated!

RBrowser 3.x Site documents are converted to be used with RBrowser4. RBrowser will read the 3.x Site Def Folder (HOME/Library/Application Support/RBrowser), convert the documents and populate HOME/Library/Application Support/RBrowser4 with them for its own use. 3.x Site defs are not touched in any way, should you have to go back to 3.x. This is a one time conversion only. If you already have Sites defined in the RBrowser4 Folder they will not be overwritten. Due to a bug in versions before 4.1.0, some SSH sites dod not get converted correctly. In order to reconvert again, please issue this commend in the Terminal:
rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/RBrowser/.rb4.converted
then restart RBrowser.

Application - Document bindings are no longer maintained by RBrowser. During startup, RBrowser gets the Finder's app lists. If you install new apps and they do not appear in RBrowser's list of apps to choose from, simply restart RBrowser. If you want to change your default app for a particular document type, you have to do that in the Finder too, or use some other utility like RCDefaultApp. BE SURE your document is opened in the correct app in the Finder!

CAVEATS - Things to know about Folder Sync

The sync engine in RBrowser employs a two-phase sync system for Local-to-Remote Folder Sync. In the first phase, it builds a database in a hidden file that is put in the source folder. This database records the state of the source and compares it to the previous database file. This way, changes can be detected easily without having to rely on various protocols to get information from the remote system. This is especially important if FTP is the protocol used to communicate with the remote system, since FTP is such a poor protocol, that it really does not allow to deterministically track changes. It trashes mod dates, does not have checksum and with text files even the file sizes change during uploads.

This poses a problem for the first time sync through FTP. We recommend that if possible, you start with an empty target directory and let RBrowser transfer everything for the first time. This is the only way for RBrowser to know that its local sync database reflects reality on the remote side.

If sftp is used for syncing or it is a local-to-local sync this problem does not exist, you can start with a target directory in any state, the sync should work.

Transcript:
The transcript window includes important debug information. It's primary purpose is to help US diagnose a problem you might have connecting to a remote site. Even if its output looks a little cryptic it is a very important trouble shooting tool. During normal operation its use is not recomended, since it unnecessarily uses system resources. In some rare instances a crash or a freeze might prevent you from getting to the transcript. If you turn on a secret default by typing this in your Terminal:
>defaults write com.rbrowser.rbrowser4 RBPutTranscriptInConsole YES the transcript will also be written into the console log. This can be viewed by starting up the Console App (in /Applications/Utilities folder). BE SURE TO TURN THIS OFF WHEN THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED as this option uses a lot of system resources. Turning it off is easy:
>defaults write com.rbrowser.rbrowser4 RBPutTranscriptInConsole NO

Progress Reporting:
Well, ditto does not print diagnostic info, so RBrowser cannot track the progress of ditto file transfers between Macs. It worx really well, though, so it is not a bad tradeoff.

Do Not drag remote files onto app tiles on your dock!
Normally, on the local system, you can open files by dragging them onto an app tile on your dock. When you drag a remote file out of an RBrowser window, RB puts the remote path of this file on the pasteboard. One good use of this is to drag a remote file into a Terminal window, and Terminal displays the path as if you typed it in. It can be very useful when you are actually logged onto the same remote host and want to manipulate this file.
However, if you drop it onto let's say TextEdit's icon, TextEdit will launch and try to open this file. At best, the path will not make sense on the local system, so nothing will happen. At worst, the file may also exist on the local system, and TextEdit will open the LOCAL file instead of the remote one. Always use doubleclick or the O (Open) menu to edit a remote file.

Permissions and Modification times:
By default, permissions and modification times are preserved during file transfer whenever possible (Yes, even with FTP download).

Document opening: You can double click on an executable file (at your own risk, of course) and the file will be opened. Exercise caution about testing large executable files this way. This feature should to make it easy to edit script files.

Progress Bar: The progress bar is only accurate on large file transfers. In the SFTP protocol in some situations progress data is not available from the transfer tool. In these cases the progress bar is disabled.

International character support: In general, these files will appear in the browser correctly, provided that the remote host uses one of the character encodings known to MacOSX. The most common one used by Solaris and HP-UX is ISO Latin-1. If you copy a file like this onto another host (or the local host), the filename may appear different due to a different encoding. Sometimes filenames have multi-byte UTF-8 characters in them. When that is the case, a lot of shell operations will break. It is best to avoid those names altogether. The list of character sets is supplied by the System, NOT RBrowser! If a particular table is missing, most likely you have not installed that language on your system.

Show sizes always in KBytes: In some instances it is desirable to look at file sizes in KBytes even if they are large for better accuracy. For this we have a "secret" default. Stop RBrowser and issue this command in the Terminal: >defaults write com.rbrowser.rbrowser4 RBShowKSizeOnly YES and restart RB again.

Uninstalling RBrowser: If you decide to uninstall RBrowser, here is a list of files RBrowser maintains: RBrowser.app, ~/Library/Application Support/RBrowser/, ~/Library/Preferences/com.rbrowser.rbrowser*. You may have passwords stored in the Key Chain (fire up Key Chain Access app), and the remote SFTP/SSH hosts you have connected to may have a ~/.rbtp directory.