Uploading files and pages

LaunchPal has three methods for you to upload and sync files with your projects.

1. Drag & Drop upload

2. Dropbox

3. SFTP

Each of these are described below.

Drag & drop upload

This is the easiest method to use for quickly getting a page up on your server if you don't use dropbox.

Just zip up the folder with the landing page on your local machine, and drag it into the target square. And click the upload button.

We dont delete any previously uploaded files.

But any files in your zip file with the same name as files that already exist in your project are overwritten.

Folders with the same name are merged and files in the subfolder with the same name are overwritten in that case.

IMPORTANT: Files continue to be synced to your server if you delete them with FTP or in a SSH session. The only way to remove them from the sync is to contact support and we can do this for you.

Dropbox Sync

If you can, I recommend you use dropbox for file management.

Its the fastest way to change files on your server and you get the benefit of dropbox's version history & activity logs should you make unintended changes.

Dropbox Sync is super fast and secure.

We do not have access to other files in your dropbox. We only have access to files in /Apps/LaunchPal/ folder in your dropbox.

Setup is super simple as well.

The first time you select Dropbox as the file management method we will redirect you to dropbox.com where you can login and authenticate our application for access to the special app folder only.

After you click the Authorize button, a window will open to dropbox.com where your asked to authorize our access to the Apps/LaunchPal folder:

Then once authorized you will see the green tick and you can confirm it as the preferred file management method for your project.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: The dropbox sync is one way only. So changes made to files on your project server will NOT sync back to your dropbox.

👉 POSSIBLE ISSUE: Dropbox puts all files on your project with lower-case folder and file names. So make sure you don't mix can and keep it lowercase in your html and file/folder names to avoid 404 errors.

(S)FTP

If you want to use old school FTP, or you need to remove some files when using drag & drop, then you can always use this - even if you selected one of the other methods when you created the project.

Remember that any changes made to your server will NOT be synced back to your dropbox.

You can use any FTP program that supports SFTP mode. SFTP is basically FTP over SSH.

In this example I use Transmit on OSX, but you can use other apps like FileZilla.

Get the SSH details for your project

In LaunchPal go to the project details screen, and select the Access section in the sidebar

This will show you the information you need to capture and use in your FTP software:

• The IP address for the server, in this case: 95.85.45.204

• The Port SSH is running on, in this case 9001

• The Username, always root

• The password - make sure you click the button to show it before you copy it

Setup a favorite/connection in your FTP app

Here is the screen from Transmit, yours may look different but the basic concepts are the same:

The key items are:

• The protocol has to be set to SFTP

• The server has the project IP address 95.85.45.204

• The username is root

• The password from the project (hidden)

• The port set to 9001

• And the remote path set to /var/www/user/

Then just save it so its easy to access next time.

Access your web files

Then just open the SFTP connection, for example in transmit it looks like this once connected.

Remember - your project web files are stored in /var/www/user/