WatchDirectory 4.5.8

New Release: WD 4.5.8

A few days ago we released WatchDirectory v4.5.8. This is a free upgrade for all version 4 customers. Just install this version "on top" of your current install so it will keep your tasks and settings.

What's New   Download

File Age Monitoring Method

WatchDirectory Professional can detect files and directories based on their age (how old they are). This allows you, for example, to delete files older than 7 days using the Delete Files plugin. Or to send an email for those old files to help you remember to "process them".

An innocent option

When you configure WD to use the "File Age Monitoring Method", one of the options you can select is Remember triggered files. If your task sends an email for "old files", you will want to select this option as it will prevent multiple email messages for the same file.

However, if you configure a task that will delete, move or rename the old file (the original "old" file does not exist anymore), make sure you do not select this option. The "remember triggered files" option stores info (filename, timestamp) into the history database for this task and this is totally unnecessary if the detected file is gone. While the history database will "auto cleanup", this file age info can use a lot of diskspace (for large directories) and cause your task to run slower than needed.

Customer testimonial - CAMP Systems

Christopher Utter (CAMP Systems) made my day:

WatchDirectory Pro is by far the best money I have ever spent on a utility.

Your support is awesome, you patch bugs and offer new features free of charge all the time. Your product just out-performs many other products I have tested with a much higher pricetag. So Thank you for your efforts. I have been able to automate dozens of tasks using the pro version of watch directory and it has saved me many man hours in scripting other solutions.

Please keep producing software solutions as you are quickly becoming my favorite software vendor.

Thanks for the nice words Chris.

Backup your settings

Backup your WatchDirectory Tasks

So you have setup your tasks in WatchDirectory and they work exactly the way you want. Perhaps now is a good time to backup your tasks because somewhere in the future, Your Computer Will Fail!

The easiest way to create a backup is to stop all tasks (including the System.Mail task if it is running) and select the menu-option
"File -> Backup..."
This creates a ZIP archive with all files found in your "Task Directory". The "Task Directory" is where most of your settings are stored, you can explore your Task Directory using the menu option "Tools -> Explore Task Directory".
Alternatively, you can use your favorite backup program to backup your task directory.

Above, I say "most of your settings". The things that are not stored there (and thus, are not included in the backup) are:

• Your batch files and other (vb) scripts that you may be using with WatchDirectory's Run a Batch File tasks
• Your How to Run settings
  Especially your Windows Service settings. If you manually changed them, for example to run as a different user, you should write these settings down somewhere. See Further Reading below for more information.

Further Reading

Here are a few earlier related blogposts that touch this same subject:
Move WatchDirectory to another computer
Move your Task Directory

WatchFTP customer - Idonix

Idonix, a custom software development company specialising in show control systems, was engaged by a major UK broadcaster to provide data integration and graphics automation systems for their 2008 US Presidential Election coverage.

One of the requirements was to download and process substantial quantities of election result data from an Associated Press ftp server. Rather than write our own ftp synchronisation software, we found an existing product that fitted our needs exactly - WatchFTP. It was extremely straightforward to configure WatchFTP to download files as they were updated by the Associated Press systems, and not only that - we were able to use the Run a batch script action to bulk load each updated file into our SQL Server database.

However when we arrived at the customer's site we had an unforeseen problem... (read more...)

WatchDirectory 4.5.7

Hello all, Wishing you a happy new year!

Yesterday we released WatchDirectory v4.5.7, another free upgrade for all version 4 customers.
This new release has an important issue fixed for the wdPostman (System.Mail) program, the component responsible for sending emails. Previous versions sometimes had long (up to 30 seconds) delays between each message.

To Install

• Download the latest version from our website
• Stop all WatchDirectory tasks, including the "System.Mail" component
• Install the new release "on top" of your old release so it will see your tasks and settings.

WatchFTP 2.0 released

WatchFTP 2.0

A new version for WatchFTP is available.

This version has 2 major improvements:

• A new "Task History" window that shows you all downloaded files and messages
• An improved "download method". Version 2 will automatically download files in 2 fases:
  • Fase 1: detect files. WatchFTP scans the FTP server for new and changed files. All detected files are recorded in the task history database.
  • Fase 2: download files. All files recorded in Fase 1 are checked to see if they have changed. If they did not change during the last 30 seconds, the file is downloaded.

Free Upgrade

This new 2.0 version is a free upgrade for all current (1.x) customers. Your license key will continue to work for version 2.0, just install it "on top" of your current WatchFTP version.

Download

English Download Page
German Download Page
Spanish Download Page

WatchFTP 2.0 Beta

WF 2.0 Beta 1

A new beta for WatchFTP is available, see our forum for download links.

This beta has 2 major improvements:

• A new "Task History" window that shows you all downloaded files and messages
• An improved "download method". Version 2 will automatically download files in 2 fases:
  • Fase 1: detect files. WatchFTP scans the FTP server for new and changed files. All detected files are recorded in the task history database.
  • Fase 2: download files. All files recorded in Fase 1 are checked to see if they have changed. If they did not change during the last 30 seconds, the file is downloaded.

Free Upgrade

When released, this new 2.0 version will be a free upgrade for all current (1.x) customers. Your license key will continue to work for version 2.0, just install it "on top" of your current WatchFTP version.

WD 4.5.6 - Run multiple tasks for the same file

New 4.5.6 release

We released version 4.5.6 of WatchDirectory a few days ago and this version has a new Plugin: Run multiple SubTasks for detected files.

Here is a copy/paste from the helpfile with some reasons why you may interested in this new plugin:

• Less tasks to run.
  A SubTask consumes less resources (CPU, memory...) than a "real" task.
• Less disk access.
  All SubTasks share the same file-detection of their main task.
• Guaranteed order of execution.
  If you have multiple tasks monitoring the same directory, you can not be sure which one will detect a new file first. SubTasks will always run in the configured order.
• Better Overview, easier maintanance.
  Ten tasks, each having ten SubTasks (10*10=100 SubTasks), are a lot easier to manage than 100 "real" tasks.
• Overcome Operating System limitations.
  Windows™ has limits to the number of Services it can run. By combining several tasks, you prevent hitting that limit.

We have made it as easy as possible to "convert" your current tasks to SubTasks. You can "import" the settings of an existing task by selecting it from the "create new SubTask based on" drop-down. This will copy the plugin settings from the selected task.

Supported SubTasks

This release does not support all plugins to run as SubTasks, future versions will support more.

Download

Download the new version here:
English version
German version

This is a free upgrade for all WatchDirectory 4.x customers. Install the new version "on top" of your current install so it will "see" your previous tasks/settings.

WatchDirectory 4.5.6 Beta 2 - Combine Tasks

We have a new beta of WatchDirectory available with an exciting new feature:
Run multiple SubTasks - a way to do multiple "things" for a detected file.
It is only the most requested feature, and now we have implemented it.

Not all plugins are currently supported by the "Run Multiple Plugins" task. We will make more plugins capable to run as a SubTask in future releases. Also note that currently, a SubTask can not (directly) use the output-file of an earlier SubTask. We have great plans for this new plugin for future releases and we are open for suggestions.

After you have installed this beta and create a new task, you can find the plugin on the "Other plugins" tab.

Make sure to read the help for this plugin!

Visit our beta forum for the download.

Gert

WatchFTP 1.0.9

We have released WatchFTP 1.0.9 with the following fixes:

• If you configured a task to run as a Windows Service, the userid & password were not always properly set.
• When a task starts it will first do a check upon the configured "local directory" to see if it is accessible.
• When configuring/starting a Windows Service task, you should get better feedback in case of errors.
• When configuring/starting a Windows Service task, the annoying "dos box" is eliminated.

You can download the new version here: http://www.watchftp.com/download.html
En Español - http://www.watchftp.es/download.html
Deutsche Version - http://www.watchftp.de/download.html

To install the new version while keeping all your settings/tasks etcetera, make sure to install it "on top" of your previous version. The installer defaults to your previous selections, so just "ok" through all the setup pages.

WatchFTP 1.0.8

WatchFTP Version 1.0.8 has just been released and has the following new features:

• New: Proxy support.
• New: Right-click a stopped task and let it "Run Once & Exit".
• New: Let WatchFTP remove FTP directories after all files are downloaded.
• Bugfix: The "Run a Batch File" action failed when the path to the Batch file had spaces in it.

To install the new version while keeping all your settings/tasks etcetera, make sure to install it "on top" of your previous version. The installer defaults to your previous selections, so just "ok" through all the setup pages.

You can download 1.0.8 here:
http://www.watchftp.com/download.html

Gert