HFS: Main menu
You can access the Main menu by either:
- Clicking the Menu button on the Main menu.
- Right-clicking the tray icon.
A list of all available commands is shown below. You may not always see them all. This is because you are in Easy mode, or because that command is not relevant to the current operation.
Menu items
This is a list of features directly accessible from the Main menu. Submenus are shown below.
- Show bandwidth graph
- If the graph is hidden (default), click this to make it visible. Graph display is displayed (by default) in "Expert mode".
- Self Test
- A test is made to verify the visibility of your HFS from the Internet. It also tries to automatically solve some problems.
- Add files
- Dialog to add files to the VFS.
- Add folder from disk
- Dialog to add a folder to the [[VFS] from a disk.
- Load/Save file system
- You can store/retrieve the VFS to/from files. Remember to save before quitting. If you haven't saved, this is indicated in the bottom right-hand corner of the status bar.
- Load recent files
- Quick access to the last VFS-files you loaded.
- Clear file system
- Empty the VFS and restores the initial state.
- Check for news/updates
- Download information about new versions and security notifications.
- Uninstall HFS
- Remove the software and related configurations (files and registry).
- About
- Information about the software.
- Switch ON/OFF
- When the server is ON, it accept new connections. Switching it OFF prompts you to break all current HFS connections.
- Restore
- When HFS is minimized, this brings the window to the top and makes it visible.
- Exit
- Quits HFS.
Other Options
- Shell context menu
- Un/install shell integration: .vfs files are associated with HFS, and all file menus include an Add to HFS item.
- Auto-copy URL on addition
- Every time you add a file, the URL is automatically copied to the clipboard.
- Always on top
- Displays the HFS window on top of all other windows.
- Send HFS identifier
- There is a standard way for HTTP servers to be recognized by clients. HFS does it automatically, but you can turn this off.
- Persistent connections
- Browsers normally open multiple connections when they download a page with icons.
- If you turn off this option, there will be a connection for every icon downloaded. This is slow. The less connections you open, the faster you go.
- This does not speed up a single file download, but it can drastically speed up browsing through folders. You can turn this option off if you need to.
- Specific HTML for download managers
- Some download managers have an internal browser to browse through the links of a webpage. This feature makes them fetch an optimised HTML, and provides a better browsing experience.
- At the moment, this options works with the following download managers: [Getright], [FDM], [FlasGet].
- Edit HTML template
- You can customize the appearance of the pages that HFS furnishes to browsers.
- Graph refresh rate
- This is the time by which the Bandwidth graph moves forward. The smaller the value, the faster it moves.
- MIME types
- This is for techies. Here you can associate files (by file masks) to MIME types.
- You can read additional info about MIME types.
- Open directly in-browser
- This is not a command. It is a suggestion. It suggests to a browser what it should be open directly, and what instead should prompt a save dialog.
- Users
- A user is often also called an account. To be recognized as a specific user, people have to log in. You can define privileges for users (and also limits in future versions).
- Use comment as realm
- If a realm is not specified, the comment will be used as realm.
- See for information about realms.
- Login realm
- Specify a realm for the LOGIN button.
- Hints for newcomers
- Displays some extra hints.
- Compressed browsing
- Pages generated by HFS are sent compressed. This means you browse faster.
- Modal dialog for options
- When options [dialog is modal], you can't access other windows until you close the options.
- Keep old version updating
- Updating replaces the software. If this option is off, the old version will be lost. When is on, you see that the old hfs.exe file is renamed to hfs.old.exe.
Upload
- Delete partial uploads
- When an upload is interrupted, the partial file is just deleted.
- Rename partial uploads
- This option is for those who want to keep partial uploads, and renames them for easy identification.
- Number files on upload instead of overwriting
- When someone uploads a file, another file with the same name may already exist. In this case, the new file gets another name (with numbers appended) to avoid overwriting.
Start/Exit
Here you can find features about starting and quitting HFS.
- Auto-copy URL on start
- Copy the home URL to the clipboard as HFS starts.
- Start minimized
- When HFS starts, the window is minimized.
- Reload on startup VFS file previously open
- If you had a VFS file open the last time you quit, it is automatically reloaded.
- Save in/out totals
- When you restart HFS, the totals are reset. Using this options preserves their value.
- Auto-save VFS on exit
- If you have a VFS open, and it is modified, it is automatically saved on quitting.
- Only 1 instance
- When this option is off, you can run HFS as many times as you want.
- When it is on, only one master runs. Any action directed to a new instance is simply forwarded to the existing one.
- Confirm exit
- Prompts for user confirmation before quitting.
- Find external address at startup
- When HFS starts, execute the Menu → IP address → Find external address command.
Auto-close
Here you can specify when HFS should automatically quit.
- No downloads timeout
- Quit when nothing is sent for a while.
Virtual File System
- Folders before
- Folders are always shown on top of other items.
- Use system icons
- You should care about this option. It makes specific file icons appears instead of the generic icon.
- This can be very pretty, but can also slow down HFS drastically in at least three ways:
- When you add a folder from the disc as a virtual one. At that time, HFS will load icons for every file, and if you have thousands of files, this could be a lengthy operation.
- When you have a real folder and someone browses it. At that time, HFS will load all icons.
- When people browse a page, HFS has to download every icon which can take much time and bandwidth.
- Load single comment files
- Enables the loading of .comment files. Read more about it
- List files with hidden/system attribute
- Files have attributes. This option determines if files with any specific attribute are shown.
- List protected items only for allowed users
- You can hide protected items (by password or account) from being listed to unauthorized browsers.
- Flag files added recently
- You set a time range, and if a file is fresh enough, it gets a tag.
- Auto-save every
- The VFS is autosaved at a regular time interval.
- Reset downloads
- Reset the counter for all files and folders.
Limits
- Speed limit
- Specify the maximum total bandwidth HFS will use when sending files.
- Pause streaming
- Stops file sending, but does not break connections. It just sets the "speed limit" to zero, temporarily.
- Max connections
- The maximum number of connections allowed.
- Max connections from single address
- The maximum number of connections allowed from the same IP address.
- Max simultaneous downloads
- You can set the maximum number of simultaneous downloads.
- Max simultaneous downloads from single address
- As above, but referring to a single address. This is a good way to share bandwidth better.
- Max simultaneous addresses
- Determine how many people browse simultaneously. Be aware that not always do different people have different addresses on the internet.
- Max simultaneous addresses downloading
- Determine how many people download simultaneously. Be aware that not always do different people have different addresses on the internet.
- Connections inactivity timeout
- If a connection is inactive for a while, it can be automatically broken.
- Bans
- You can prevent clients from specified IP addresses.
- Minimum disk space
Allows you to set (in megabytes) the minimum amount of free space that must be available before an upload starts. This is obviously useful when your hard disk is nearly full, or if you expect someone is going to send you a huge unwanted file.
Flash task button
The taskbar is that bar with the START button. The task button is the button on the taskbar (also called the notification area) with HFS written on it. You can make it flash to alert you to events.
- On download
- Flash when a file is requested for download.
- On connection
- Flash when a connection is established.
- Never
- Disable the task button flashing option.
- Also beep
- Make a sound when the task button flashes.
Tray icons
Tray icons are those icons in the bottom-right corner of your screen, near the clock (also called the "notification area").
- Minimize to tray
- When you minimize HFS, the taskbutton is hidden and only the tray icon remains.
- Show main tray icon
- If this option is on, the main tray icon is always displayed, even if HFS is not minimized.
- The tray icon shows
- The main tray icon displays a number. You can choose whether this indicates the number of "current connections", or "logged downloads", or "logged uploads", or "logged hits".
- Tray message
- When the mouse hovers over the main tray icon, it displays a message. You can customize the message here.
- Tray icon for each download
- You can get multiple tray icons. For every file download, an icon is created to show progress.
IP address
This menu doesn't actually change the way the network works. It is used by HFS to form URLs in the Address bar, for your convenience.
- Custom
- Sometimes it is useful to type the address yourself. For example, if you have your own domain or you are NATted.
- Don't include port in URL
- This only affects URL building. Use with care.
- Find external address
- This is useful if you are in a LAN and HFS only detects your internal address, but you may want to be visible on the internet.
- In these cases, the external address is not actually your address, it is the address of your router. To make the address work, you have to correctly configure your router.
- Constantly search for better address
- Let's say you have a dialup connection. You run HFS, it detects your local address and shows it.
- Then you connect and get a new internet address.
- If this option is on, HFS will automatically switch to the new address.
Dynamic DNS updater
If you have a Dynamic DNS account on a service which allows updating the DNS entry through an URL, you can use HFS to do the updating.
- XXXXX wizard
- This is a wizard which helps you to setup HFS to update DNS on DynDNS, No-IP, or CJB.
- Custom
- The update is made through an URL. Here you can input such a URL, for example, if your service has no wizard.
- See last server response
- When an update is attempted, it may fail. Sometimes, you may want to see the server response.
URL encoding
- Encode spaces
- You can disable space encoding to avoid those %20. Please notice that your chat will probably not recognize the full URL.
- Encode non-ASCII characters
- ASCII characters are alphanumerics plus a few more. They are usually encoded in the %NN form.
- Use UNICODE in HTML
- Non-ASCII characters are subject to incompatibilities. UNICODE systems solve this problem with an international standard for characters. Some systems do not support it, so it is your choice to use it or not.
Save options
You can decide where and if to save options.