best FTP + browser app?

Question

Level 1

8 points

best FTP + browser app?

I need to make a large website available offline. Yes, offline. The files (mostly static HTML, some images, a little Javascript) are a large collection of legal texts - there are > 5000 files using > 450 MB file size all in all. The files have to be made available locally for people who are in a factory or another place which has no internet access. They will have to download everything using FTP, and then look at the files using some browser that can open local HTML files.

While on Android, I can use any FTP app and download the files to somewhere on the SD card, and open them with the Firefox browser, this is much more difficult on iOS. The only way I found so far is using "Documents 5", use their not-very-user-friendly FTP functionality to download the website, and then open index.htm with the inbuilt browser. There are some limitations such as: I can't see the download progress; when one file has changed, I cannot simply download that one file and leave the others as they are. There is a synchronize function and I activated it, however I can't see if it does anything.

I would very much appreciate other ideas how to do this (other than, writing an app of my own).

-Michael

iPad Air, iOS 9.2.1

Posted on Feb 17, 2016 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 17, 2016 12:41 PM in response to veloopity

They will have to download everything using FTP, and then look at the files using some browser that can open local HTML files.

1) How are these folks getting the files? Why all this complexity? How are you syncing updates? Your running an FTP server. You have a server of some sort. Install the internet's most used web server, appache on this machine. It's easy to install and use. You do not need access to the internet to run a web server. Any old machine will do. Get an old machine. Get a wifi router. Install CentOS on it. Install appache. Problem solved.

2) Look into icab. It allows you to save html files on the ipad.

R

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Answer 2

veloopity Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 20, 2016 9:18 AM in response to rccharles

hi rccharles, "problem solved" - please elaborate. I run two web servers already - web servers display web sites for people who can go online right? these people don't go online, they need thousands of HTML files OFFLINE. The easiest way for large downloads is via FTP, and there are many apps for that.

"Why all this complexity?" because iOS (contrary to Android) does not allow browsers to display locally stored HTML files.

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Answer 3

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 20, 2016 11:45 AM in response to veloopity

Look into icab. It allows you to save html files on the ipad.

iCab allows you to store html files within iCab. added in version 8.9 bullet #2 in version history.

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Answer 4

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 20, 2016 12:06 PM in response to rccharles

Check out goodreader. Include lots of file management stuff.

convert the files into either iBook or pdf.

ibook:

http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

GoodReader

-- View MS Office, TXT, HTML

-- With GoodReader on your iPad/iPhone, you can read virtually anything, anywhere: books, movies, maps, pictures.

-- sync with Dropbox, OneDrive, SugarSync and any WebDAV, AFP, SMB, FTP or SFTP server

-- The types of annotations that can be created and edited in GoodReader include typewriter text boxes, popup comments ("sticky notes"), text highlights, freehand drawings, lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, cloudy shapes, text underlines, strikeouts, text insertion marks.

http://www.goodiware.com/

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