Dogs to Ducks

Fetch, Cyberduck

Update: Be sure to read this entry too, which is making me reconsider my use of Cyberduck.

When you work on web sites, there are a few tools you get to become buddy-buddy with. Your text editor. Your photo editor. Your browsers. Your FTP program.

Of course, your FTP program. Where would you be without it? You'd be up a creek without a paddle, that's where you'd be!

When I switched to the Mac six years ago, I first used InterArchy. It worked, but not too pleasantly for my tastes. I then switched to Fetch, whose website looks the same as it did in 2000. Fetch did everything I needed it to do, and did it without complaint. In time I became a beta tester for the 5.0 release and thought it was a solid improvement.

But no relationship is without its idiosyncracies, and the little Fetch dog occasionally made me growl. Like, for instance, when I was editing a file on the server with TextWrangler. Let's say I edit a file, and in the Fetch window navigate to another folder. I then go do something (gee, upload a file?) and head back to TextWrangler. I hit save. But wait! I navigated to another folder, right? Fetch took care of that. It helpfully navigated to where the open file was saved, and saved it.

Then when I needed to upload another file to that folder I navigated to earlier, I'd just drag it onto Fetch's window. But... you guessed it... the window had been pointing to where the TextWrangler file lived. Meaning I just uploaded it to the wrong folder, because Fetch "forgot" where I was. Oops.

I am a creature of habit, as are you, but I still toyed with the idea of switching FTP clients - particularly, Transmit. Transmit is, in a word, fantastic. It's beautiful (much prettier than Fetch if you ask me), it's useful, it is tightly integrated with TextWrangler or whatever text editor you'd like to use, and it costs money. $30, to be specific.

$30 is not a lot of money for an FTP program. But you know, I'd rather buy a pair of shoes for that $30.

I recall trying out an open-source FTP program called Cyberduck a year or so ago and thinking it really sucked. It did. It was awful. The interface sucked, the everything sucked. The icon? Well, I'm not a fan of too much cutesy-ness in my Dock. But a duck? Okay. Whatever. Say hi to Adium.

(I don't really use Adium; I don't really IM on the Mac.)

I totally forgot about InterArchy until Gruber mentioned it, and I will admit the interface looks absolutely fantastic. Its ability to look just like Finder has been a strength - or weakness - since its early days. But InterArchy, too, costs the money.

Something got in my noggin about 3 weeks ago, however, and Cyberduck was referenced in some forum or blog I was reading. I thought, "Why not give it a shot?" So for the past three weeks, the dog and the duck have been sitting side by side in my dock. (Fetch is to the left, so he can't see the Cyberduck; he's just fetching the floppy disk to the giant TextWrangler logo in front of him.)

I plunged into Cyberduck the same way I did RSS: wholeheartedly. I set up shortcuts for the FTP sites I used the most and saved them so I could use QuickSilver to access them. But a thought: "Gee, that display is fugly." I really thought that: "fugly". Vertical lines. No alternating row lines. No horizontal lines. Egads, it's 1987.

But wait! A preference? Yes! A preference for it. So I can make Cyberduck have pretty alternating row columns and no stupid horizontal or vertical lines, the way I like it. Great!

And I can make a double-click equal "Edit in TextWrangler" instead of "Put the file on the desktop" like Fetch - one of the most annoying things ever? Yes!

And it has a Transfers window! And a drawer for Bookmarks! Swell! Lovely!

And somehow, I got sold on this once ugly duckling. The little Fetch dog has been without his companion, Running Triangle, underneath him. He's been kind of nonresponsive, just sitting there mid-jump with his floppy.

There is one flaw with the Duck, though: I can't rename files like I do in Finder, by clicking the filename once. The first time I encountered this, I actually said, "Ooooooh," in a bad way. Instead I have to open an info window and edit it there. No preference for that, at least none I've found. (Note: after R'ingTFM I learned that I could click a filename and then press Return and then edit it. Lame.) The plus side is that I was able to submit a ticket for this, which is great.

Is it a deal-breaker? Time will tell. But my instinct says no. I'll trade the awkward renaming mechanism for the multiple little problems I had with Fetch, which all added up to a dull headache.

I will admit I'm pleased there are more than a couple of great FTP clients out there for the Mac. All I've mentioned in this post are great in their own ways but, for me, the Cyberduck wins.