I cannot believe this functionality isn’t already in the core of allowing publishing updates to any host on the publish button using FTP. Yet another head scratching moment as something really obvious is missing from the core program.
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And it’s missing from most HTML editors these days so it’s not exactly an isolated thing. Sure we all want it, but to be honest I’d rather they get the majority of the functions needed for building done before even thinking of adding this to the app. Not sure they even have this in the plans, but if so that’s my take on it.
++1 though as I’m sure most would say they want this feature too.
It’s not a deal breaker though for most users, because we are totally used to it unless you came from Dreamweaver, in which this does such a better job of building than that bloatware does. 
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Its the fact they have obviously included the functionality to push their own hosting solution but didn’t seem to think that users might dare to want to use something else. If there’s going to be a publish button there at all then my opinion it should support other hosts too. That’s my take on it.
I don’t think the developers are particularly interested in making our lives simpler as looking back in the forums the FTP functionality has been mentioned previously over a few years. I have no idea why, it seem irrational to me.
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Oh I know trust me, I’ve been one of those asking for it as well so I know your pain there, but I see the difference also between doing their own hosting upload and creating a full blown FTP program within the app. When they upload via the upload button that’s all they can add is what is in the site. I’m not 100% sure on this as I don’t use it myself, but I don’t think there is FTP options for this setup as it’s not meant to be the end resulting home for the site. More like a way to showcase our work to clients etc.
It’s really not that awful using something like FileZilla, which is what I use on my Mac. I came from Dreamweaver directly to this so trust me I do know what you are talking about and I was frustrated at first as well. I got used to it and truly it’s not all that big of a deal now. I open Filezilla when I start working on a site and I keep my working files in an export directory and copy the changed files to the working directory so I always have the last pages available if something goes wrong. Keeping it simple, try it for a bit and see how it works out for you. The app is definitely worth the time invested to upload yourself.
Our Publish feature doesn’t use FTP, which makes it much simpler to develop and maintain.
In order to support FTP publishing we will need to build an entire FTP client. It will need to handle browsing remote folders, detecting and resolving file conflicts, storing login credentials securely, syncing said credentials between your Bootstrap Studio installs and dozens of other complications that we haven’t considered.
This is a lot of work for something that can be done with WinSCP. You can configure it to watch a local directory and automatically upload the new files to the remote (docs). Then you just export to the local folder.
For Linux and macOS you can mount the FTP server as a local directory and export there.
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I am assuming you mean SFTP, you are using some protocol to send to the preferred host site.
We send the code to our local server for testing and dreamweaver is just one click and its ready to go.
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That’s because Dreamweaver has a full FTP/SFPT app built inside of it and has had for decades. Here you are asking them to add it in whereas Dreamweaver started with it directly if I recall correctly.
When Martin says “Our Publish” he is talking about the Publish feature that is currently in the app which “only” uploads to the BSS servers of which you get 5 sites to use it. It “only” uploads the exported files and nothing else, you cannot upload anything using external FTP/SFTP apps, so it was not quite as heavy of a feature to add.
Making a full blown FTP/SFTP app within an app is a lot of work, and as far as I’m concerned (and I’m sure many others … even though we would all like to have it) it’s not as important as getting more site building features and updates in.
Martin did mention that you can set up your files to upload automatically, that would be just as useful as the Dreamweaver setup I’m sure. I plan to see if I can check out the Mac version, but I’m so used to the ability to control my files for backups and safeguarding for uploads with multiple directories now, I’m not sure I want to, but I do intend to check it out. Do the same, let us know if it works for you. 
You are right, but its not as it they have only one programmer so this is far down the list. I’m sure there is an intern who could be doing this is slow-mode. I think it is marketing, that they want to use the product to push you into their hosting solution. Why? Because buying the product is a one time charge, hosting is the magic of repetitive billing. That’s the jewel they are protecting. Right? Just use free FileZilla.
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Ah but … there isn’t a paid hosting plan here that I’m aware of. Only the 5 site free hosting that comes with purchasing the software, … doesn’t mean it may not be added later, but at this time there’s no repetitive billing going on. Most people just use it to share sites with their clients so they can show them their work and keep them up to date during the building process. Then they take it down when done and put a new one up as they do work.
I’m surprised anyone even uses the publish button beyond initial testing. Its certainly is not for presenting to a client. For that we have our own web hosting space and just a sub folder with a similar environment to the customers production space. Its starting to sound like that BSS is just a prototyping tool trying to market itself as production software. I wouldn’t say BSS isn’t a good piece of software but its not quite there as a production tool unfortunately.
We have our hands full with a lot of features at the moment, but if we reduce the scope of the FTP support it could find its way in one of our next releases.
By reducing the scope I mean that we won’t build an FTP browser and file manager, only the ability to enter SFTP settings, and to publish to the server. To do things like deleting, renaming, downloading and uploading additional files you will need to connect with FileZilla.
Do you think you would find this type of publishing sufficient?
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For myself I don’t think it’s necessary. There will most likely be way too many times that I’ll still need to connect fully to my servers so it would really be a wasted feature for me. I’m good with FileZilla.
Now, having said that, it would be helpful if at some point you add the ability to import other files such as docs, pdf, zips, etc. This is mostly the reason I’d still have to open FileZilla, making the upload feature you mention, pretty much useless on my end.
I feel the time would be better spent on more features, maybe even creating a setup for those of us that want more things unlocked, I’d much rather see that than an FTP system.
That’s just my opinion of course.
I think a simple FTP function should be achievable. I wouldn’t bother building in user functions like in a full blown FTP client. The user just needs to press the publish button and have their site placed on their server in the same structure as in the design applet. Once the button is pressed behind the scenes you might do a simple file compare of the local and remote version.
While filelist()
If local.file.name == remote.file.name {
If local.file.date is older than remote.file.date { rename remote.file.name * }
Upload local.file to Remote server.
}
else { Upload local.file to remote server }
Endwhile.
- Rename format could be: {original-filename}{bk}{version number}.{extension}
For other functions then users can use a full blown client like filezilla.
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Yes, that would be perfect.
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+1 Agree, that would be great
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