Technical Support Frequently Asked Questions

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FAQ's about Anarchie

What is archie ?
Choose a server
Search types
Finding files
Getting a file
For more information

Q. What is archie ?

A. Archie is a utility that searches as database of FTP file names. The database contains the names and locations of 2.1 million files that are available to you. You use an Archie application such as Anarchie to query an Archie server, a computer that has the database. Anarchie searches for the keywords you give it, and shows a list of file names and their locations (site and directory). With this information you can use either Anarchie or Fetch to transfer the file to your computer.

Q. Choose a server ?

A. There are a few dozen Archie servers around the world. They all have identical information, and the information is updated every month. It is most efficient to use Archie servers that are geographically close to here. However, if these are all too busy to take your search, you can use another Archie server.

The nearest Archie servers are "archie.unl.edu", "archie.internic.net", and "archie.sura.net". Try these first.

To change servers, use the pop-down menu to the right of the server name.

Q. Search types ?

A. Anarchie can do three kinds of searches: sub-string, pattern, and regular expression.

With sub-string searches, you only have to type part of the file name and Anarchie finds any file whose name contains those characters. For example, searching for "fish" finds "starfish", "fishing", "fish", etc.

With pattern searches, Anarchie finds any file whose name matches the search string exactly. For example, "starfish" finds "starfish" but not "fish", "fishnet", etc.

Regular expressions are a more complicated way to define search parameters. For information, see the help file "regex" help file.

Each kind of search can be also be case sensitive or case insensitive. If it is case sensitive, Anarchie discriminates between upper and lower case. For example, in a case sensitive sub-string search, searching for "Fish" finds "Fishing" but not "fish".

Q. Finding files ?

  1. Choose Archie from the File menu.
  2. Select an Archie server using the pop-down menu next to the server name.
  3. Select a search type.
  4. Type search keywords in the "Find" field.
  5. Type the maximum number of matches you want Anarchie to show.
  6. Click on Find.
  7. A window opens with all the items Anarchie found.

    Note: That in the example Anarchie found all files with "astronomy" in their names, whether they are scientific papers or lyrics to a music album named "astronomy":

  8. Once you have search results you have several options:

To look inside a folder, double-click on that line. Anarchie accesses the server and shows you the file names.

To get a file, double-click on the file name. Anarchie connects to the server and gets you the file.

You can use the Save Bookmark command from the File menu to create a bookmark of a source.

You can copy a file's location onto your clipboard. This can be useful if you want to email a file's location or if you want to paste the information into your Web browser. If you hold down the option key when you copy the file's location, the location is copied to the clipboard as an URL. This means you can paste it directly into the "Open URL" dialog box in a World Wide Web browser.

Q. Getting a file ?

A. If you know where a file is, you can use the Get command to get the file directly. This does essentially the same thing as Fetch, but it is more direct for anonymous FTP. For getting files from Access you should still use Fetch since you have access to more files than an anonymous user does.

Q. For more information ?

A. To get help, choose Anarchie Help from the balloon help menu. You can also turn on balloon help.