Automatically copy a file to multiple directories

Q&A

Perhaps I should blog a little more often. Perhaps just some questions from customers and answers from me.
Sometimes the answers are so obvious to me, but people who didn't use WatchDirectory as long as I did may find this useful.

How can I copy a file to multiple target directories?

Easy (part 1): just configure multiple Copy Files tasks.

Easy and Obvious. Another question answered. Another happy customer!!

How can I copy a file to multiple target directories in ONE process?

Oops. If you setup multiple tasks like described above, you will have multiple processes running (one for each "target directory"). Not a big problem if you want to copy to 3 or 4 targets but Windows will not like it if you need to copy to (say) 30 or 40 target directories.

Easy Answer - Alternative 1 - Sort Files

As copying files is one of the most popular uses for WatchDirectory (together with email notifications and Upload Files) we made a task especially for this.

It is called the Sort Files plugin. It is one process that monitors a directory and uses "rules" (see here) to determine where it should copy the files to. If you do not set the "final" option for a rule, the rules after it will also run, thereby allowing you to copy a file to multiple locations.

Easy Answer - Alternative 2 - Subtasks

WatchDirectory Professional (not the Standard edition) includes a plugin called the Subtask plugin. This is a more general task that can call other plugins (including "Copy Files", "Upload Files" and "Email Files") for each detected new or changed file.

See Also

How many tasks does WatchDirectory support?

WxRemote v1.7b Released

We just released a small update for WxRemote. The WxListener component did not properly detect the "running / not running" state of some WatchFTP tasks.

Download the new release from its webpage:

• English
• German
• Spanish
• French

Windows 8

Yes, our programs will support Windows 8

Below a picture of the (German) customer preview with WatchDirectory installed. Yes, the WatchDirectory icons look a bit out-of-place. But it is great to see Microsoft did a fine job (again) to keep their OS compatible with our programs. Or is it the other way around?

WxRemote v1.7 Released

We have just released a new version of WxRemote, the set of programs for remote control of your WatchDirectory and WatchFTP tasks. This is a free update for customers of previous versions.

New/Changed in this release

• New: The configuration program (WxConfig) now has a "Scan Network" button for easy lookup to see where the Listener and ConnectionManager are running.
• Improved: The WxWeb component used for the Web-interface is a LOT faster when you have many tasks.
• Changed: If a server had a lot of WatchDirectory and/or WatchFTP tasks (more than ~60), communication could fail

Download / Install

Install the new release "on top" of your current version and it will keep all its settings.

Download the new release from its webpage:

• English
• German
• Spanish
• French

WatchFTP v3.0 beta 3

On our forum we just published the first public beta of WatchFTP v3. New in v3 is support for SFTP servers.

Read the forum post for more info and the download link:

Forum.

When v3.0 is officially released, it will be a free upgrade for all current WatchFTP customers.

WatchDirectory review by Frederick Barton

Found a new review about WatchDirectory, it includes a short video, here it is.

"Pros:
Watch Directory can save you a lot of time due to the fact that repetitive tasks can be automated. With its large array of options, you can create any task in a flexible way.

Cons:
When creating a new task, the wizard's many options can overwhelm a novice user.

You can forget about performing the same task over and over again. This can be done automatically by Watch Directory's features, saving you valuable time...."

About the Cons. I have to agree. WD is not for people who just started to use a computer. It is hard to implement lots of functionality and maintaining usability. I wonder how Frederick would review WatchDirectory v1.0, years ago... No wizards, only a command-line program.

Working on WatchFTP v3.0

Work has started on WatchFTP v3.0.

New Features

The initial v3 release will add support for monitoring SFTP sites, one of the most requested enhancements.

Planned features

Later v3.x releases will add

• 64bit support
• "Just Reporting" - no file will be downloaded, WatchFTP will just report on new files on your FTP server

Free Upgrade

Existing customers can upgrade free of charge to this major new release.

Help with the Beta

We expect a first beta release by the end of the month (or early February). If you want to help us test, send an email to gert at gdpsoftware dot com.

Walk to end Alzheimer's

I just saw this link on facebook, there are no walks in Holland...

There is one terrible thing on earth that should bind us all together. It is not white against black, Muslims against Christians, Arabs against Jews, "left wing politics" against "right wing politics"....

It is a terrible disease that can affect all of us or the people we love.

It should be All Of Us against Alzheimer's. Next year I will again give my February income to www.alz.org (or to the Dutch http://www.alzheimer.nl/ ). Yes I am cheap, the shortest month of the year.

Can you perhaps spare an hour, day or month of your income to fight Alzheimer's? Everything helps and who knows, you may be helping your parents, yourself or your children.

After printing the PDF, I want to...

Some of the WatchDirectory plugins are actually small batch file scripts (.bat or .cmd). Those scripts are typically called by WatchDirectory when new files are detected.

For example, the "Print PDF using FoxIt Reader" plugin is a .bat script that calls Foxit to print the pdf.

Some customers want to have a bit of extra functionality after printing the PDF, for example Delete, Copy or Move the pdf. Here is how you do it, should be easy enough if you know a little bit of batch scripting.

Locate the batch Script to change

In this blogpost I will assume your WatchDirectory task is called PrintPDF, change the directory name below accordingly.

• Make sure the task (PrintPDF) is not running while you make changes to its script
• Inside the WatchDirectory Control Center select the menu "Tools -> Explore Task Directory"
  (this opens Windows Explorer inside the directory where WatchDirectory stores all its settings)
• Navigate one directory "deeper" into the subdirectory with the name of your task (PrintPDF)
• Inside this directory you will find a file called wd.bat, this is the script started by WatchDirectory

Make the changes

Open the file wd.bat in a text editor (notepad) and scroll to the bottom where you will find the following 2 lines

"%FOXCMD%" %OPTIONS% "%WD_FILE%" "%PRINTER%"
%ANNOTATE% Info done

Any changes you want to make after the file has printed should be just before the "%ANNOTATE%" line.

Delete the PDF after printing

Insert the following line

DEL "%WD_FILE%"

Move the PDF after printing

Insert the following line

MOVE "%WD_FILE%" "C:\Some Other Directory"

Print the PDF twice

Just repeat the FOXCMD line, like this

"%FOXCMD%" %OPTIONS% "%WD_FILE%" "%PRINTER%"
"%FOXCMD%" %OPTIONS% "%WD_FILE%" "%PRINTER%"
%ANNOTATE% Info done

WatchDirectory v4.6.7 Beta 3

On our forum we have a new beta for WatchDirectory v4.6.7. Changes in this beta:

• Improved: Implemented "Clear Command Channel" for FTPS protocols
• Fixed: The Upload Files task will now retry to connect when it receives a 40425 error
• Fixed: The Environment variable WD_FILE_E was not properly set for files without extensions
• Fixed: WatchDirectory crashed (or just didn't work) on Vista and Windows-7 when not running as an Administrator
• Improved: The WatchDirectory Control Center is more efficient (cpu and resources)
• New: Filter Events can now also filter with bat scripts for complex filter situations.
• New: A new plugin to Remove the Oldest Files from a Directory: Use it to delete old log files while keeping the 10 newest.
• New: The Zip File task can now be used as a Subtask.
• Fixed: The task that Upload Files to an FTP Server would send false email warnings when renaming files.

Download the beta from our forum.

WatchDirectory v4.6.7 Beta 2

On our forum we have a new WatchDirectory beta available. The highlights of this new beta are:

• Fixed: WatchDirectory crashed (or just didn't work) on Vista and Windows-7 when not running as an Administrator
• Improved: The WatchDirectory Control Center is more efficient (cpu and resources)
• New: "Filter Events" can now also filter with bat scripts for complex filter situations.
• New: A new plugin to Remove the Oldest Files from a Directory: Use it to delete old log files while keeping the 10 newest.
• New: The Zip File task can now be used as a Subtask.
• Fixed: The task that Upload Files to an FTP Server would send false email warnings when renaming files.

You can find the beta on our forum: http://www.watchdirectory.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1312278065/1#1

Gandlake - a WatchDirectory customer

Gandlake is a market leader in the supply of web channels, e-Transaction solutions, document storage, print and mail management and site wide authentication models.

Having experienced significant growth and increased demand for their services, Gandlake required an automated file handling solution which would improve the reliability of their services.

"In order to service file transfers uniquely for many individual clients at any one time we needed a scalable system which could handle multiple file uploads from our customers". said Paul Shepherd, IT Systems Administrator, at Gandlake.

Through research we found the product WatchDirectory and quickly established that its rich set of features gave us the perfect solution to our problem.

We have been using the product for several years now and it has proved invaluable to the business. It does not end there, I have to give a special mention to the Support we receive on the odd occasion when we have raised a query, you know that a reply is going to come quickly which is more important than one of those annoying automated processes.

Many Thanks to you and your team Gert.

Paul Shepherd
System Administrator
Gandlake Limited
www.gandlake.com