Interarchy

Current Version: 6.3 (February 10, 2004) / 7.3.3 (April 14, 2005) / 8.5.4 (October 29, 2007) / 9.0.1 (April 15, 2008)

Note: As of February 1, 2007 - in what amounted to an employee buyout - Interarchy's lead developer, Matthew Drayton, formed a new company, Nolobe Pty Ltd, and acquired Interarchy. Matthew has been working on Interarchy for six years and has led the development of Interarchy for the last several years. See the press release for more information.

Interarchy, formerly known as Anarchie, is, perhaps, the most popular Mac FTP client - but today it is much more than an FTP tool. One of the most compelling pieces of Mac OS Internet software ever produced, the version 9 series includes the following major new features:

• Interarchy now supports a new SSH-based transfer protocol. It should work with any server that supports SSH and has perl v4 or later installed. (Basically, any server that has SSH installed.) SSH has a number of advantages over SFTP. For one it is a lot faster when transferring listings. This means mirrors should take a lot less time to complete. Our internal testing has shown dramatic speed improvements for moderately sized websites; seconds versus minutes.
• Interarchy's view model has been re-written to support drag-reordering of tabs. Along with being able to reorder tabs in the owning window, you can also drag tabs to a new window.
• Added "Move Tab to New Window" and "Merge All Windows" commands to the Window menu to help work you work with tabs. Most windows - bookmarks, listings, history, etc - can now be placed in a tab.
• Interarchy now has much improved resolution independence support. If Apple ever get their act together and finish Mac OS X's resolution independence support Interarchy should be ready.
• Interarchy adds a Side Bar to listing windows. It behaves much like the Finder's Side Bar.
• Interarchy's listing windows now have a Path Bar which displays the path of the selected file. It behaves much like the Finder's Path Bar but with some improvements.
• Interarchy now supports workspaces. See the Window | Workspaces submenu. Workspaces allow you to more easily focus on a task.
• Cleaned up the behavior of the old "Connect to Server..." window.
• The Transfers window has been redesigned. It is now a lot smaller and less obnoxious when trying to come to the front.
• The Interarchy Contextual menu has been much improved.
• Added support for copy-and-pasting files/folders.
• Added support for PathFinder. See the File Manager pop-up menu in the Preferences window.
• You can now control what happens when you press the Return or Enter key in a listing window. Instead of renaming the selected object you can opt to open it instead.
• You can now specify what should happen when a file exists.
• By default Interarchy will now download files to the Downloads folder. You can change this in the Transfers pane of the Preferences window.
• Interarchy will now reopen your last session at startup restoring any open connections. You can turn this off via the "Reopen Last Session At Startup" checkbox in the General preference pane.
• You can now access your entire history via the History menu.
• Added a preference to control when history entries are removed. See the General preference pane of the Preferences window.
• You can now set the default FTP application in the Preferences window.
• Moved the Upload Permissions settings to the Preferences window. See the Permissions preference pane.
• Moved much of the Listing menu to the File menu to be more in keeping with other modern applications.
• Along with being able to copy an items URL, you can now copy an items Public URL. See Edit | Copy URL and Edit | Copy Public URL.
• Interarchy requires a mapping from the private URL and the public URL. The first time you select "Copy Public URL" you will be asked for this mapping.
• To edit an existing mapping hold down the Option key while selecting "Copy Public URL".
• You can now copy the path of an item. Hold down the Option key while selecting Copy.
• Added a "Preview in Safari" command. This uses the same private/public mapping mechanism as Copy Public URL.
• Edit With is no longer limited to applications that support the ODBE suite. You should be able to use any application.
• Interarchy no longer uses it own internal file mapping database. Instead it uses the system Launch Services database. If you use the Finder to change a file mapping it should be reflected in Interarchy.
• Added an Edit With submenu that allows you to edit a file with any application on your Mac that claims to support it. Much like the Finder's "Open With" submenu.
• You can now creating new remote files from local templates. Particularly useful is the "New From Template | Text | From Clipboard...".
• Interarchy now performs application updates by way of Sparkle.

Version 9.0.1 makes the following additional changes:

• Added the ability to set a definitive editor for all file types. See the "Editor" popup menu in the Helpers Preference Pane.
• You can now change an editor for a file type from inside Interarchy. No more having to switch to the Finder. See the Get Info window and the Always Edit With menu (hold down the Option key).
• You can now set the editor for a file type such that it only applies to Interarchy. This is quite useful if you want .html files to open in Safari and edit with BBEdit.
• Interarchy is now much smarter about how it populates the "Edit With" menu.
• Much improved stability on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and earlier.
• Fixed up a crash that might occur when changing the protocol in the "New Connection..." window.
• Fixed a bug that may have prevented the double-click action for a particular file type from working. See the Get Info window.
• The Edit toolbar item should now activate/deactivate correctly.
• Fixed a crash that might occur when adding a folder to the Bookmarks Bar.
• Removed the support for spell checking. This should prevent crashes that result from dodgy dictionaries installed by 3rd party applications.
• Interarchy is now registering for the bbftp: and bbsftp: protocols.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the chasing arrows in the Get Info window/inspector from being drawn properly.
• Fixed a crash that may occur if you dragged-and-dropped a tab onto the sidebar.
• Adjusted the minimum size of the Transfers window so that you can resize it to the height of one entry.
• Fixed a crash that would occur if your closed a queue while it was running.
• Fixed a crash that may occur when text is appended to the Transcript.
• Fixed a crash that may occur if you deleted an object and then closed the owning window before the delete was complete.
• Added a preferences to auto-hide/show the Transfers window. See the "Auto Show/Hide Transfers Window" checkbox in the Transfers Preferences Pane.
• Improved the window titles displayed in the Window menu.
• Return/Enter key mapping now works in icon and column views.
• Interarchy will now remember the name given to a new Bookmark in the "Add Bookmark..." sheet.
• Fixed a bug that would cause the SSH protocol to think a file existed when it didn't.
• Find should now work.
• The Cancel button in the "URL Mapping Not Found" dialogue (Copy Public URL) now works with multiple items.
• Updated the AppleScript Edit With command to use the editors bundle identifier.
• Fixed a bug that may have prevented drag-and-drop from working in the Side Bar.
• Interarchy now displays localised names in the Side Bar.
• Fixed a crash that might occur in when displaying the Interarchy Contextual Menu. Use the "Install Interarchy Contextual Menu" button in the Advanced Preference Pane to install the new version.
• Fixed a conflict between the keyboard shortcut for "Preview in Safari" and "Show All Bookmarks..." menu items. "Preview in Safari" is now Command-Control-P to match BBEdit. "Show All Bookmarks..." remains Command-Option-B.
• Updated the green, red and grey blips (Net Disks, Queues, etc) to include higher resolution images. Yah resolution independence! Hopefully one day we will see you.
• Reduced the size of buttons bar in Net Disks and Queue views.
• Added a preference to post process downloads. See the "Post process downloads" checkbox in the Transfer Preference Pane.
• Copy-and-pasting remote files should now behave correctly. It will copy instead of move.
• The little arrows in the schedule sheet should now work properly.
• If no protocol is given when entering a url into the address text field the value of the "Preferred protocol" popup menu in the General Preference Pane is now used.
• You can once again set a source folder for Net Disks. Especially useful if you want a Net Disk to live on a volume other than the boot volume.
• If you double-click in the background of the Tab Bar a new tab will be created.
• The SSH protocol will correctly follow symbolic links when downloading a file.
• If you create a new tab the address text field will once again auto-populate with the target url from the previous tab.
• Improved the initial window size when you first run Interarchy.
• Fixed up the copyright text in the About Window.
• Properly observe the "New windows and tabs open with" popup menu value (see the General Preference Pane) when creating new tabs.
• Set the default value for the "New windows and tabs open with" popup menu value (see the General Preference Pane) to "New Connection".
• Improved the reliability of setting permissions via SSH.
• Interarchy will now properly filter out keyboard modifiers if a menu command is invoked by it's keyboard shortcut.
• Improved the behaviour of spatial browsing.
• Added a Show/Hide Status Bar menu item.

Version 9.0 is the latest release for Mac OS X 10.4.11 and later. Versions 4.0 through 8.5.4 of Interarchy incorporated the functionality of many older separate Stairways Software products, including MacTCP Watcher, OTSessionWatcher, Daemon, Finger and others. Network traffic watching and packet display were particularly useful tools for Web developers who want to see watch the interactions between servers and browsers. Unfortunately, version 9 eliminates these tools, which is presents a huge step backward in Interarchy's usefulness.

Interarchy has always had some great features, but their unique combination hasn't always made sense to certain people, primarily those who merely sought a simple, straightforward file transfer application. Interarchy has historically been, rather, a power user's FTP client. In recent years, other FTP clients such as Transmit have continued to refine the FTP experience, while Interarchy more or less struggled with what it should be, trying to be all things to all people. Version 7 significantly raised the bar, cleaning up the interface and its various features considerably, with custom views for each bookmark, and with a Finder-like attention to detail. "Tabbed" FTP browsing - identical to the Web browsing breakthrough that people have grown to love in Mozilla, Firefox and Safari - was a welcome addition, as were customizable toolbars, "icon" views, scheduling, and other niceties. The network analysis tools became prettier, and the package began to feel a bit more cohesive. However, versions 8 and later finally make great strides in bringing all of Interarchy's great power to the masses with an intuitive user interface.

Interarchy has always been a tool that every serious Mac Internet user should consider, and today it's a tool that even the less-serious Mac Internet user will feel at home with.

Through February 29, 2008 Interarchy 9 is available at an introductory price of US $39, with a suggested retail price of US $59 effective March 1, 2008. Registered owners of Interarchy 8.5.4 or earlier can upgrade for the discounted price of US $29.