TriVista Software Transfer Files Module
Many TriVista products are designed for fast, easy Web page generation. These
products include 3D ImageCube, 3D ImageScene, and Ultimate Online Photo Gallery.
To streamline this process further, these tools have an FTP-based Transfer Files
option, which becomes available after a Create operation. This module already
knows the file names of all the required Web pages (HTML, JPEG/GIF, and
sometimes VRML). So, it's simply a matter of clicking the Transfer Files
button, entering your FTP account information, and clicking OK. Once you've
transferred a set of files successfully, the code will remember your login
information - next time it's just Click (Transfer Files) and Click (OK).
What do I put in the account/directory fields?
The details of what to enter for the FTP account information vary a little,
depending on your selected Web site service. The sections below describe
many common scenarios.
Geocities
||
Xoom
||
Tripod
||
Talk City
||
MSN
||
AOL
||
ISP
The following figures show what to
enter on the Transfer Files dialog, for
several popular "free Web page" providers:
Geocities
Because of the transition to Yahoo,
you may need to append a ".geo" to your Geocities username.
For example, if your username was happygirl, you might
need to use happygirl.geo instead.
Xoom.com
Note: for 3D ImageCube, the two check boxes for
transferring the Target Images and Wrapper Files will NOT appear.
Tripod.com
TalkCity.com
MSN.com
These sites are often busy, so FTP connections can be hard to
make and keep, especially during peak Web "rush hours." During these
busy periods, you may need to try the file transfer several times to
get it to complete.
AOL - America Online
Transfer to AOL requires a live AOL connection and some
specific data for the Transfer File dialog fields.
The steps are:
- Sign on to AOL
- Run a TriVista product (3D IC, 3D IS, UOPG)
- Click the Create button on the final screen
- Click the Transfer Files on the final screen
- Enter your AOL information, as shown in the following
screen shot of the File Transfer dialog:
Enter your screenname@aol.com (for example, JoeBloe@aol.com)
as the FTP password.
The live connection will authenticate your AOL login information.
This site is often busy, so it may be slow during peak periods. Also,
note that AOL limits the Web space for a each screenname to 2MB
(as of June, 1999).
ISP (Internet Service Provider)
Details and mileage will vary. Check with your particular service
provider for information on publishing to your Web area.
Here is a typical example:
The specifics of the directory field
depend on how your Internet Service Provider (ISP) handles
disk and Web server naming. For many cases, your Web pages are in a directory
called public_html. For example, if you have an account name
bob at an ISP called abcisp, then your home page URL
might be http://www.abcisp.com/~bob. If you use a directory name of
public_html and transfer a file called myCube.htm, then the URL
is probably: http://www.abcisp.com/~bob/myCube.htm. Some ISPs don't use
anything special, and you can simply type in the name of an existing
directory. This is often the case if you have an alias for your Web
site. For example, if http://www.somename.com is your normal
home page address, and you transfer a
cube called aCube.htm using the directory coolStuff, then
your URL should be http://www.somename.com/coolStuff/aCube.htm.
Note: be careful to use the correct directory separator for the target system
(i.e., the Web server). For example, if the server is Unix, the separator is
the forward slash "/" - a common mistake is to enter the (DOS) backslash.
What will my Web page address be?
Again, this varies. Check with your service for
specific details (which may change from time to time).
For the examples above, the URLs are something like:
| Geocities | http://www.geocities.com/SomeName/SomeOtherName/1234/myfile.htm |
| Xoom.com | http://members.xoom.com/YourLoginName/myfile.htm |
| Tripod.com | http://members.tripod.com/YourLoginName/myfile.htm |
| Talk City | http://home.talkcity.com/StreetName/YourNickName |
| AOL | http://members.aol.com/screenname/myfile.htm |
| MSN | http://homepages.msn.com/StreetName/YourLoginName |
| Typical ISP | http://www.somename.com/~loginname/myfile.htm |
What happens when I click OK?
You will see a dialog that says Connecting to Web server... Then,
this will go away and be replaced by a progress display:
When this disappears, your files should be on the server, ready to link!
Check the Filename Details... list on the final screen of
the software, and see the Help files, for more information about
which files to link from your existing pages.
Other Home Page Services
There are many services providing Web pages, for
free or for a fee. All of them have instructions for how to FTP files to
your Web page area. If you can figure out how to do it with a standard
FTP client, you can probably figure out what to put in the fields for the
Transfer Files module. It might take a little trial and effort, however.
One provider which does not appear to work well for publishing groups
of files is Angelfire. They have an awkward one-at-a-time means of transferring
file, and they place severe constraints on the publishing environment.
If all else fails, use a separate FTP client to transfer
all the required files. Look at the list in the Filename
Details dialog on the last (Create) screen of the software.
Since TriVista products use a "prefix" naming style, most of
the necessary files are adjacent in an alphabetical directory listing.
Upper Case Filenames
One final note: if you use all upper case image filenames,
transferring files with an external FTP program may not work
correctly for 3D ImageScene and Ultimate Online Photo Gallery
(especially for Unix servers). The File Transfer
module does not have this problem. Also, you can use the
Batch Reduce module on the first screen to work around this
problem (because it'll "normalize" the names of all the files).
Copyright
© 2004 TriVista Technologies, Inc.