Multi-Threading... yes, Again!

[leo77]

OK I know this has been brought up 100 times already...

I know it's on the 'to do' list... (and has been for years)

But I'm bringing up multi-threading yet again, because of this :

SFTP has now been implemented in the beta. In the past whenever somebody requested SFTP then typical replies were "yeah yeah it will require a whole rewrite of the code, then we'll get multi-threading etc etc" and whenever somebody in the past asked about multi-threading then typical replies were "yeah yeah it will require a whole rewrite of the code, then we'll get SFTP etc etc"

So here we are with SFTP, and yet still no multi-threading! I love FlashFXP and have been using it for so many years, but when I need to upload a LOT of files then I need to open up FileZilla... Why, after all these years, do I still need to open up a free open-source program to do a job that my preferred paid FTP client just can't handle efficiently? I know the staff here must obviously be overworked and underpaid otherwise it would have been done already (and why I never complained in the past) but now that we have SFTP, surely now is the time for multi-threading!

Last but certainly not least, think about it this way : If I can upload with 5 threads, my task can be finished 5 times faster. That means I get more time in my day! There is no other feature that can guarantee MORE TIME IN OUR DAYS! So that seems like a massively important feature, I can't imagine what else in the 'to do' list could be more important than giving us all MORE TIME IN OUR DAYS!



ps. this post's Poll doesn't seem to work.

[bigstar]

SFTP was implemented using a component package from Eldos called SecureBlackBox, this component provided a solid and viable solution and enabled us to provide SFTP support in FlashFXP. Without it I can honestly say SFTP would still be on the to-do list.

You can't really compare SFTP which is a protocol to multi-threading which requires changes to the entire product from the ground up.

Yes, we are all overworked but we do it because its what we love to do. There are never enough hours in the day and time is not on our side. There's only so much that we can accomplish per release and its never enough for us. But sadly a time comes where we must stop adding new features and get the product ready for a stable release, After which the whole cycle repeats.

Multi-threaded transfer support is still on our to-do list, but I can honestly say I have no idea when we'll get to it.

Several years ago we came up with this idea that v4.0 would be a complete rewrite, At first I was excited but then after a couple months of research and eventually realizing that FlashFXP contains over a half a million lines of code (649,033 lines to be exact) that this would be an enourmous undertaking. At this point I do believe that a rewrite is very unlikely, but that doesn't mean we're giving up on multi-threaded transfers.

[evilsync]

Thats a shame, you've given up before you've started! I should have researched the product more before I bought it. The FTPs I use only pull decent speeds through threading, otherwise they are capped per thread (AFAIK).

Ah well.

[petralian]

well you could indeed use filezilla or bitkinex (both free) combined with flashfxp (your favo ftp program) until the guys @ flashfxp manage to get multithread implemented... its annoying but it works.

[leo77]

It just occurred to me... there are 2 types of multi-threading, and while I understand that implementing 1 of the types may be complicated, perhaps the other type is easier to implement?

The complicated type of multi-threading is when each individual file is uploaded with multiple threads...

The other type isn't really multi-threading, it's just multiple simultaneous transfers, i.e. if you've got 100 files in the queue then it could be transferring 5 of them at once (or however many depending on user setting). This isn't really multi-threading so doesn't help when transferring individual large files, but is very helpful when transferring large queues (eg. whole directories).

Hopefully it won't require a whole re-write of the software just to get multiple simultaneous transfers?

[evilsync]

Great idea. Instead of opening up multiple sessions of FlashFXP and queuing them up sequentially you can do it in one session/client.

[X3]

I actually voted it would be nice, because it would bring ffxp alongside with what all sorts of other clients but either way I look at this the fact remains no matter how manny connections or files I have uploading at same time the upload or download speed is still finite, which means once you max out your connection the speed is divided by each active connection until it makes up the total.

It would be even nicer if the ftp protocol itself got a overall.

as far as ffxp goes, a recode from scratch is a big undertaking as is a new version with significant improvements and additions already takes enough time, if there was another coder working on a rewrite a newer more modern ffxp could be realised, but peeps seem to forget that this is a one developer only job and if he was only developing 8 hours a day, with breaks that's 10 hours add support time, emails, admin, forums + real live and other jobs that need doing there is literally no time in 24 hours to achieve.

I would say in the next year to two years that we'll see a massive improvement. Theres more ways to skin a cat.