I'm pleased to announce the release of FtpVC 2.5a, which features several important bug fixes and improvements. You can see the FtpVC Version History page for more detailed information about the release.

Note that this version uses a new scheme of naming stub files. As a result, all of your client desktops have to upgrade to 2.5a at the same time, and all checked-out files have to be checked in before the upgrade. FtpVC 2.5a will read the old stubs and convert them to the new format but the old versions of FtpVC will not be able to read the new stubs.

I'm pleased to announce that we have finally released FtpVC 2.5, the long-awaited update to our popular serverless version control system.

As you open FtpVC 2.5, you'll find that the user interface itself looks more modern now and features more customizability: the Folders and Output panes are no longer fixed, but can now be docked, floated, and hidden at will. (Note that the following screenshots have been taken in Windows Vista, which FtpVC 2.5 fully supports.)

Another improvement in usability is that FtpVC can now be minimized to the system tray. Simply check "Minimize to the Taskbar Notification Area" under Settings | Misc, and when you minimize FtpVC, its icon resides quite snugly in the tray:

This release isn't short of function, however! Most importantly, we have completely overhauled the Find Checkouts and Find By Status features. They are no longer restricted to a single directory; instead, when one of them is selected, FtpVC enters a new mode, denoted by special folder icons, as shown below. Under "Find mode," all directories are filtered to display only the type of files that you are looking for, and to exit the mode simply refresh.

Other new features include the ability to copy main view items and History items to the clipboard, a project option for comments to be required, improved support for SMTP and Unix symbolic links, and a much faster file compression algorithm.

I hope you all enjoy FtpVC 2.5!

We are excited to announce that we have just released a beta of FtpVC 2.5! In addition to a cosmetic makeover, this beta features improved Find Checkouts and Find By Status behavior, the option to minimize FtpVC to the system tray, and complete Windows Vista Support.

You can find more details about the 2.5 beta, and a download link, here.

We at PrestoSoft have always supported education, and we know that many of our users are students and teachers, who use ExamDiff Pro and FtpVC for educational purposes, such as research projects and gradebook management. For this reason, we now offer a 20% discount to those using our software for educational means. To qualify for this discount, please e-mail us with your name, the name of your educational institution, and your reason for purchasing our software. We do not require a copy of your ID, but in order for us to verify that you are indeed from an academic institution, we would like you to e-mail us from your academic e-mail address.

These past few days have been rather hectic here at PrestoSoft, due to our rush to release FtpVC. We had it ready for a while now, but we wanted to keep it in Beta for a comfortable time so that no new bugs are discovered prior to the release.

Now, let me go in-depth into some of the new features of FtpVC 2.4 (the full list of added features can be found here).

Our major feature here is rollback, a feature that is present in many other version control systems, so we naturally wanted to add it to FtpVC. As shown below, Rollback appears as a button in the History dialog, and can be clicked once a previous version of the file is selected, causing the file to be "rolled back" to that version.

Another new feature, that I personally think is pretty cool, is the ability to specify arguments for your external diff tool (in Settings | Misc), as shown below. One thing that sets FtpVC apart from some version control systems, such as SourceSafe, is the fact that instead of being stuck with one diff tool, you can choose an external one, and this new feature adds on to this, by letting you set up command line options of your favorite comparison tool.

A list of arguments (command-line options) for ExamDiff (which comes with FtpVC) and ExamDiff Pro can be found by opening a DOS prompt and typing ExamDiff /?, and for ExamDiff Pro it appears here. If you are using a different diff tool (and we certainly hope you're not! :P), check the documentation for it.

Finally, I'd like to mention that FtpVC now has an attractive true-color toolbar, just like in ExamDiff Pro 3.4. In addition to being much better looking, the toolbar comes in two sizes, 16x16 and 24x24, which can be switched by right-clicking on it, choosing Customize, and then going to Icon options, as shown below.

This has been just a selection of the new features in FtpVC 2.4. Hope you like them! =)