A few people have had difficulties sending files to Tap Forms. Here's a brief guide showing you how to do this.
The first thing you need is an FTP client application. My recommendation on the Mac is Cyberduck. You can download Cyberduck from cyberduck.ch. On the PC, I've only had experience with FileZilla. You can download FileZilla from filezilla-project.org. FileZilla is actually available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Note to Mac OS X users: The OS X Finder mounts FTP servers in read-only mode. This means you cannot drag files to Tap Forms by connecting to it with the Finder. Please use one of the above programs instead.
Once you have your FTP client app ready to go, do the following:
1. Tap the Files tab in Tap Forms:
2. Tap the "Power On" icon:
3. Connect to Tap Forms using the IP address provided on your device. This will most likely be different than what's in the screenshot above for me. For Cyberduck, these are what my settings look like for my IP address:
This is what I used for the Mac version of FileZilla:
4. In your FTP program you should now see your file list like this (in Cyberduck):
5. Now just drag your .csv files into the inside of the Imports folder. When you do this, your .csv files will become available to Tap Forms when you tap the "Import Records" button from either the list view's action menu or from the Edit Form's action menu.
I hope this short guide helps you out with this task.
Thanks, this really helped and worked successfully via Filezilla. The problem appears to be in my version of CuteFTP Pro for Mac 2.0.1 — it insists on a password even when logging in as anonymous.
Hi Eve,
If you’re on a Mac I’d recommend CyberDuck. It’s way more “Mac like” than FileZilla.
Thanks,
Brendan
Error in Windows XP
FileZilla server:
Connected, waiting for authentication
Protocol error: Unknown protocol identifier (0x50 0x50 0x48). Most likely connected to the wrong port.
Connection to server closed.
You need to make sure you’re using the FileZilla Client, not the FileZilla Server application. And also make sure you’re using regular FTP and are connecting to your IP address provided by Tap Forms and port 8021.
Thanks,
Brendan
With the application iDisk, I can download files from Mobile Me to the iPhone. I prefer this method to using the ftp site. How do I access a text file already in iPhone from tapforms?
Yes! thanks for this tutorial. Really helps. Maybe link it the app itself?
The above instructions work great but overlook one point. If using ftp, on iPhone make sure in Tapforms, you set the File Transfer Method to FTP, and not WebDAV in the File Settings.
These instructions were written before I added WebDAV. WebDAV is easier to use in my opinion. Especially the web browser interface. But at least you have a choice.
Brendan
CyberDuck does have a better interface, but I couldn’t establish a connection with it. FileZilla works well for me, so I’m using that. (On OS X 10.6.2). I’m assuming that you can’t download files ( for example, .pdf) using WebDAV.
The ability to use files in TapForms is one of its great features, although you have to be careful to press the right arrow button on the record rather than the file title.
Did you make sure you set the port in Cyberduck to 8021? Also set the user to anonymous by clicking the anonymous checkmark.
I love Cyberduck :-)
Thanks!
Brendan
Cant get ftp working using filezilla anyone had any success with this ?
connection timed out error
Hello Barrie,
Remember to use port 8021. That may be what’s causing the connection timeout error.
Alternatively, use the WebDAV server and then use your web browser to upload your files.
Thanks,
Brendan
Trying first import, got it to work using WebDAV, but could not get FTP to work. First it timed out a bunch of times, then several times got “Connection refused.”
Any ideas?
Hi Jody,
What settings were you using for your FTP program? What FTP program were you using?
Thanks,
Brendan
Hi, Brendan. Got Cyberduck, and also tried YummyFTP, which I think may work. The button at bottom left of the Files screen was taking me back to Forms, but today it gave me the option for FTP, so DUH, that may have had something to do with it.
Will try again and report back. Thanks.
Success. Also, YummyFTP worked great. Was able to delete previous imports I didn’t want, which I had wondered about.
Am experimenting before doing my whole database. It took 130 records with no probs, once a set of quotes was cleaned out. It accepted dups without question, which is OK as long as user is aware.
I really like this app, already use it for 4 things besides my main db.
Hi Jody,
You can also delete files right inside Tap Forms by tapping the Edit button on the Files tab and then tapping the delete icon that appears next to each file. There won’t be a delete icon next to the Imports and Exports directories as I’ve made those permanent.
Thanks,
Brendan
Can’t get ftp to work. On a PC so can’t use CyberDuck. Tried both Filezilla and WinSCP. Both connect but then timeout.
Connecting to 192.xxx.x.x:8080…
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message…
Error: Connection timed out
Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Waiting to retry…
Any suggestions? Thanks
PS tried using 8021 instead of 8080 (which is the number displayed on my ipod. That gives:
Status: Connection attempt failed with “ECONNREFUSED – Connection refused by server”.
Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Waiting to retry…
Really disappointed that the connection using Cyberduck is not working. I too, like Charlie, tried changing from 8080 which is displayed on my iPhone to 8021 but that did not help.
Any other ideas ASAP?
Hello Scott,
If you’re using Cyberduck and you’ve turned on the FTP server inside Tap Forms, then you need to use port 8021.
However, if you say that port 8080 is being displayed, then this means that the WebDAV server is running. Try going to http://your.ip.address.number:8080 in Safari and see what happens. Replace your.ip.address.number with the value Tap Forms tells you.
Let me know if that shows you the web interface.
If you’d prefer to use Cyberduck, then you need to tap on the gears icon on the bottom-left of the Files tab and then switch to the FTP server. Tap Save when you’ve made the switch.
Thanks,
Brendan
Fixed. Thanks to Stoddardv for pointing out that you must first touch the gear on the left and if using ftp, on iPhone make sure in Tapforms, you set the File Transfer Method to FTP, and not WebDAV in the File Settings.
Changed that and then I saw 8021 and it worked like a charm!
Hi
I can’t get either WebDAV or FTP to work for me. When I turn either of them on, the IP address that’s displayed is the same as the IP address of my home wireless router (is this what you would expect?). When I try to connect I just get an error telling me that it’s not possible to connect. For example, in Windows’s “Add Network Place Wizard” I get an error saying “The folder you entered does not appear to be valid”. Any ideas?
Greg
Same. Totally stupid. Very pissed off. Waste of money.
I’ve FTP’ed many times. Why all of a sudden NOT WORKING.
Hello Andrew,
Are you saying that your iPhone is also giving you the same IP address as your router? That’s very odd because each device on your network is given a unique IP address.
The easiest way to transfer a file to Tap Forms is to use the WebDAV server, then use the IP address and port number displayed at the bottom of the Files tab when you power on the WebDAV server. It should be something like http://192.168.1.100:8080 for the WebDAV server. If you see something like ftp://192.168.1.100:8021 then you know you have the FTP server turned on. You can easily switch between the two by tapping the silver gear icon at the bottom left of the Files tab.
Once you get the WebDAV server turned on, use your browser to visit the address http://192.168.1.100:8080 (or whatever IP address the iPhone gives you – this one was just for example purposes).
Please let me know if any of this works for you.
Thanks,
Brendan
Hi
I have the same problem as Greg, both WebDAV and FTP not working. Any ideas?
Thanks, Christine
Hello Christine,
Have you tapped the power on icon on the Files tab to turn the WebDAV server on? Also, are you using the full URL that you see at the bottom there? I.e. http://10.0.1.1:8080 for WebDAV?
Thanks,
Brendan
Sure, I switched the server on and typed in the http adress displayed by Tapforms.
I am using Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2. For FTP, I am using FireFTP.
Hello Christine,
If you’re using the WebDAV server, you cannot use FireFTP to connect to it. If the address in Tap Forms starts with http, then you need to just use your web browser or a WebDAV client to access it. It’s easiest to use a web browser though. If the address starts with ftp then you can use an FTP program to connect to it. Also, if you’re using FTP, then connect using “anonymous” login.
Thanks,
Brendan
As I said before, neither the FTP nor the WebDAV connection worked.
However, the Air Sharing support suggests to reset the WIFI connection “forget this network” on the iPhone side and then map the network drive. This worked. Unfortunately, it seems that I need to reset the WIFI connection each time I want to use the WebDAV connection.
According to Avatron, this seems to be an incompatibility between the iPhone OS and Vista.
Hello Christine,
What I’m surprised about is that also the web browser connection to http://10.0.1.9:8080 (or whatever your IP address is) is not working for you. That seems odd that Internet Explorer is unable to connect. Although you haven’t mentioned anything specific about trying with Internet Explorer, only connecting with a network drive. You should see a web page that looks similar to my website here, but with a list of your files and an upload button near the top. Do you not see that? Or when you try to go to http://10.0.1.9:8080 (or whatever your IP address is), does your web browser just hang?
I do believe I’m using the same WebDAV technology as Avatron is. They’re both based upon the open source lighttpd project. Unfortunately the company I licensed the WebDAV implementation from is no longer in business as someone bought the rights to their software. So I just hope that it keeps working for me when iPhone OS 4.0 is released.
The FTP server software I use is from the open source DiddyFTP software. When I connect using Cyberduck or Terminal on the Mac it works just fine.
I don’t have Vista to try it out, but I have Windows XP installed in Parallels on my Mac and it works fine when connecting with FileZilla. Have you tried the FileZilla FTP Client software?
Thanks,
Brendan
Dear Brendan,
When trying to connect to my IP adress, the browser displays an error message: invalid address.
I tried to use NetDrive to mount the WebDav drive (as suggested by the Avatron support) and now it gets even weirder: It works indeed for the Avatron software, but not for Tapforms. :-(
Strange thing though, now I get the folders displayed (in Windows Explorer), but in the following format:
/192.168.0.5:8080/Exports
When trying to open the folder, I get an error message: Path is not available.
Best regards, Christine
Dear Brendan,
do you have any new insights regarding the problem with Vista? Today I tried again the FTP connection, it still does not work for me.
Best regards, Christine
Hello Christine,
Hmm… can you email me a screenshot of your connection information from your FTP program? That may help me to diagnose the issue. Send it to support@tapforms.com
For the iOS 4 update which I am awaiting approval from Apple, I’ve had to remove the WebDAV support as the library I licensed no longer worked in iOS 4. Contacting the developer who I licensed it from was an exercise in frustration as he would not respond at all. But there are still 3 different ways to get files into Tap Forms. 1. via your favourite web browser. 2. via FTP, and 3. via Dropbox.
Have you tried Dropbox yet? It’s really good.
Thanks,
Brendan
Recently downloaded the lite version and still cannot access web, nor ftp. Until fixed, one can still scp files back and forth (for the more advanced users that is)
Hello Sean,
Have you turned on the web server on the Files tab and accessed the website address provided? Did you put the whole address there? E.g. http://10.0.1.5:8080? Do you get errors? Do you have a password set? What browser are you using? Did you try other browsers? What OS?
Thanks,
Brendan
Hopefully this will help you resolve some of the connection issues being experienced. I downloaded the “Lite” version to test Tap Forms and thought the Web/FTP file transfer support would be great. So… I started the app and started the server…
It reports that I should use “http://10.91.217.134:8080” for connections. That’s odd, because my internal network is 192.168.14.xxx and the iPhone is assigned 192.168.14.157. I tried connecting to the advertised URL and it didn’t work. I connected to my known iPhone IP and it worked! So, the web server should have been reporting “http://192.168.14.157:8080”.
After a little more digging, I turned up that the 10.91.217.134 address is assigned to the pdp_ip interface (3G data network) on the phone and the 192.168.14.157 address is assigned to en0 interface (wireless).
The application needs to limit the displayed IP to the wireless network interface to get this working for everyone. I have not done much iPhone coding, but you should be able to identify the address for just the wireless adapter.
Investigating further, I see that the application listens on all interfaces (tcp4 *.8080) from any address. For security reasons, I also recommend that you limit your server to only listen on the wireless interface.
A quick solution for your users would be to check the Settings->Wi-Fi->(SSID) to get their correct IP address to use. Or, if they want to see the correct address displayed, they can temporarily disable the cellular data connection by going to Settings->General->Network and setting Cellular Data OFF. Going back to Tap Form, the wireless address will be displayed. Just remember to turn Cellular Data ON for normal use.
Enjoy!
Bill
Hello Bill,
Wow, thanks for the in-dept technical explanation of this issue! It’s very surprising to me because I’ve never seen it display my cellular data IP address. If I’m on WiFi, I always see my WiFi address. So I’ve never encountered this issue. If you’re not on WiFi and only on Cellular, I pop up a message telling you to connect to a WiFi network first. I will look into the web server code to see why it’s listening on all IP addresses.
Thanks!
Brendan
The FTP method works GREAT!! We’ve cut our data collection time in the field in half by populating the known fields with data provided by our clients, then filling in the others in real time. This app alone has been a driving force in our decision to migrate to ipads company-wide. Thanks guys!
Thanks GPS Guy! That’s great to hear!
Release 2.1.12 seems to have broken sending file from PC. Application shuts down.
Hello Brendan, and thank you for such a great product!
I have tried using both Cyberduck and Filezalla to transfer files to tap forms on my iphone 4 fro my 7/64 pc with little success. It is never really clear whether or not I am connected between the two. There are a variety of errors from time outs to unexpected errors etc. which are probably due to user error/in-familiarity on my part of the products but..
The bottom line is that I CAN connect to Tap Forms if I type in the address that Tap Forms tells me to from the files/turn on web server button prompt into Google Chrome, I see a web page similar to this forum page with Three folders including Audio Recordings, Photos and Share. I also see back up zip files that I have made within Tap Forms. If I select Browse then Upload in Chrome, the file I chose to upload now appears in the WebDev Chrome browser window which I assume means that the file I uploaded is now somewhere on my iPhone.
The problem I have now is I don’t know where to find the file on my phone that I just uploaded from my PC into Tap Forms. It isn’t in the Files/Imports or Exports folders. What I would like to be able to do is format a text document on my pc and then choose it to use in a notes field.
Thank you, Bob
Hello Bob,
When you connect to the server inside Tap Forms, navigate into the Share folder, then you can either upload your file there, or go further into the Imports folder and put them there.
Then you’ll see the file inside Tap Forms available to you.
Thanks!
Brendan
Thank you Brendan and I’m sorry for the delayed response! I have been getting used to moving files about and have a few more questions that have arisen as a result if you don’t mind.
1) When backing up data from the Tools/Backup &Restore/Create Backup File screen. When I click on Create Backup File. It creates a file labled TF_name of Iphonedate etc.zip which is what is supposed to happen. The problem is that I now have about 10 zip files in the backup and restore screen. Is there a way to get rid of all of the backup zipfiles except the latest?
2) When in iTunes in iphone/apps/file sharing, I assume the files I need to back up are the Share folder, the Photos folder, the Audio Recordings folder, the most recent TF-.zip file and the TapForms_db.sqlite files. I have been overwriting the 3 folders and the .sqlite file. and Deleting the old TF_.zip file and replacing it with the latest TF-.zip fie. Will this keep me properly backed up?
3) When in Chrome looking at the files via the built in server, I see the above mentioned folders, TF_.zip files and the .sqlite file which is correct and good. But I am also seeing some text files that I accidentally uploaded to TapForms on my iphone from Chrome on my PC. They are outside of the three folders and cannot be located on the iphone while in tap forms (should have clicked on the Share folder link in Chrome before clicking upload). Is there any way to get rid of these text files? Clicking on them while in Chrome only downloads them to my pc.
Thanks again for such a great product, Bob`
Hello Bob,
1. Just “swipe to delete” the backups you don’t want from the Backup & Restore screen. Alternatively, in iTunes File Sharing click on one and press the Delete key on your computer’s keyboard.
2. Actually you only need to copy the TF-blah.zip files to your computer. They contain all the other files and folders (not including other backup files of course).
4. In iTunes File Sharing you can delete those files. Just click on one and press the delete key in iTunes.
Thanks!
Brendan
Great! Thanks for the help.
Bob-
I have exported records using the action Export records from a list view of some records I created and I see under Files in Exports there is a file called “the Name of the Record Form”.zip. I then used Tools and used Web/FTP Settings and selected Web and entered my user name and password for the computer which I will use to connect in te screens. Then pressed power button and received my IP address and used Internet Explorer 8 on my WinXP Pro machine and I was then asked for password username etc entered the same ones and I was able to connect. The problem is I see my .zip file and I clicked it and then saved it to my computer. However when I try to Extract the files I recieve an error stating Windows has blocked access to these files to help protect your computer. Also I receive an error stating these files are on a location that is unavailable? Please help!!
Thank you,
Cheryl
Hello Cheryl,
It seems your message was put into a spam folder in my WordPress blog and I did not see it until just now. I’m very sorry for this.
As for the problem with the zip files on your computer, that bug was fixed in the latest update. Are you still having the same issue with the zip files not expanding properly on Windows?
Thanks,
Brendan