Search This Blog

Friday 19 August 2016

WxRemote version 1.9.2 released (free update)

We just released a new version of our program WxRemote, our program to remotely control your WatchDirectory and WatchFTP tasks. We highly recommend you install this free update.

Fixed in this release

There was a memory leak in the WxConnectionManager and WxListener components. This leak would only show if you had logging disabled. Furthermore, "Check for Updates" did not work properly.

Download the new release here.

30% Discount

For a limited time, until the end of September, you can buy WxRemote with a 30% discount. Use the discount-code WXPROMO in our webshop.

Thursday 21 July 2016

WatchDirectory v4.9.4 released

We just released another free update for our program WatchDirectory. To update, download the evaluation version from our website, stop all your tasks and install this new release "on top" of your current install. That way, all your settings, license info and tasks are kept.

New in this release

  • Improved: Updated the supported encryption methods for the FTP Upload plugin.
  • Improved: When you let the Email task combine multiple emails, there is a new setting to prevent the same file being attached multiple times.
  • Improved: The Print PDF task has a new option to set the print orientation (Portrait or Landscape).

The installer now uses a new so called SHA256 code signing certificate. Our older installers used a so-called SHA1 certificate. Older Windows versions (for example Windows XP) do not recognize the new certificate and may give you a warning that the certificate is corrupt. You can safely ignore that message.

Wednesday 11 May 2016

Email alert for empty folders

A customer asked how he can setup our program WatchDirectory to notify him when a folder is created and no files are present after a few hours.
WatchDirectory is typically used to detect new files or folders so this requires a little scripting to get right.

Setup the Email task

Create a new task based upon the Email Plugin. Use something like "Folder %WD_FILE_N% is empty after 2 hours" as the subject and "%WD_FILE% is empty" somewhere inside the email body.
%WD_FILE% is replaced with the full path (C:\Some\Folder) of the new directory, WD_FILE_N by the directory name without its path (just "Folder"). See Variables for all variables you can use.

For the Monitoring Method select File Age, let it trigger for files (it also does directories) older than 120 minutes. Make sure to check the option "Remember triggered files" unless you want to receive multiple alerts as the folder gets older and older.

On Events only select "DIRNEW" - to detect folders, we are not interested in files.

The Script that actually checks for empty folders

WatchDirectory can not do everything for everyone just by installing but it has amazing ways how you can customize its functionality with little scripts. In this case the customer wants to receive a notification when a folder is empty after X hours, something not directly supported ("build in") by WatchDirectory.

On Filter Events you can add several standard filters to prevent triggering the WatchDirectory task (for example, the file or directory must match "Customer_*.txt"), for this case we need a filter script (a .bat file).
Here is the script to use in this case:

rem filter script that checks if a detected "new" directory is empty
rem "new" in quotes because WatchDirectory triggers using the File Age
rem monitoring method for directories that are 2 hours old.
rem When the directory is empty, the task should trigger an email.
rem If the directory contains one or more files, no email should be sent.

rem %WD_...% variables are explained here: 
rem     http://www.watchdirectory.net/wdhelp/plugins/wdopAutoRunBatEnv.html
rem File Age Monitoring:
rem     http://www.watchdirectory.net/wdhelp/help/wdnewconfigpage3.html
rem Filter Scripts:
rem     http://www.watchdirectory.net/wdhelp/help/filter_events.html

IF "%WD_REASON%" NEQ "DIRNEW" GoTo :NoTrigger

SET NUMFILE=0
FOR %%c IN ("%WD_FILE%\*.*") DO Call :FoundFile
IF %NUMFILE% EQU 0 GOTO :Trigger
GOTO :NoTrigger

:FoundFile
SET /A NUMFILE=NUMFILE + 1
GOTO :EOF

:Trigger
ECHO Y > "%WD_FILTERRESULT%"
GOTO :EOF

:NoTrigger
ECHO N > "%WD_FILTERRESULT%"
GOTO :EOF

Friday 19 February 2016

WatchFTP v3.7.9 released - Free Upgrade

We have just released a new version of WatchFTP, our FTP monitor. This is a free upgrade for all customers who own a WatchFTP license. Just install this release "on top" of your current version so it will keep all settings and tasks.

What's new?

This releases fixes an obscure problem when you connect using a "strange" password. With "strange" meaning characters not found in the typical ANSI (a-z,A-Z,0-9) character set. If your FTP server supports the UTF-8 character set, WatchFTP would first connect using ANSI but switch to UTF-8 after this initial connect. When WatchFTP needed to re-connect again, it tried to do so using UTF-8, an encoding your FTP server doesn't expect for new connections.
On the "Advanced Settings" window you can now enter the character set to use while connecting, it will default to ANSI.

Thursday 11 February 2016

WatchDirectory v4.9.4 beta 1 - TLS 1.2 support

On our forum we have a first beta for WatchDirectory v4.9.4 available.

The FTP Upload task now supports the TLS 1.2 protocol for secure connections. Download the beta from the forum link above.