How to auto sync your Home course folders with SLATE

How to auto sync your Home course folders with SLATE

SLATE  is a student-teachers interaction portal at FAST National University of Computer and emerging sciences. This is a place from where each FAST student downloads lectures and other course material. Slate can be accessed at http://slateisb.nu.edu.pk

Today I want to write on a common problem that is the headache to download every single file manually. After reading this article you will be able to automate the process of downloading files from SLATE.

For solving this particular problem I am using a software named BitKinex. BitKinex is an innovative FTP, SFTP and WebDAV client for Windows and its freeware. Just follow these steps to automate the process of downloading resources from SLATE.

Please carefully follow each step, do not jump:

1. Download Bitkinex from here.
2. Install Bitkinex with normal settings.
3. On opening Bitkinex for the first time, a dialog will appear click next until setup is complete. Don’t connect to server connection via wizards because we will make some adjustments while adding a new connection/folder. Now lets start adding a new folder in our Http(WebDAV) folder of Bitkinex.
4. Open Bitkinex, right click on Http (WebDAV) folder and select new -> Http/WebDav connection or press Ctrl+2.
   
5. Now type a name for your connection and press enter.
   
6. When you press enter after writing the name a new dialog will appear. This is the main setting dialog where most of the connection related option are present. On server page enter these details
   Server Address: slateisb.nu.edu.pk
   User: Your slate username (your rollno)
   Password: Your slate password
   
7. Now before adding your course folder, first you have to copy your folder URL from Slate. I will show you how to do that. In the picture below copy only the part marked in red rectangle with number 4. (Do not copy the http://slateisb.nu.edu.pk part).
   
8. Now its time to add a website folder into our connection, See following image for details. On connection settings dialog click on site map page then click on line highlighted with number 2. Then paste the text you copied in last step to field highlighted with number 3. To complete this step click on update (shown in picture as #4). After that the clicked line will update its path field to whatever you entered in text box (shown as 3).
   
9. Now click on Layout and uncheck inheret permission checkbox(see #1) and select My computer from drop down(see #2), select tree or list from panes. Then enter a default directory where you want all the files to be automatically copied(see #4), like I entered the absolute path of my local course folder. Finally click ok to close the dialog.
   
10. Now double click on your new created connection and a new dialog will appear, you will see all files and folders of your new connection folder, now select all files from slate folder and click both buttons as show in #2 after that click right arrow. Now another dialog will appear.
    
11. Now a new screen with title ‘Copy File(s)’ will appear. Follow the instruction given in following image, select ‘Mirror Synchro’ as operating mode, select the checkbox of skip files identical, finally select only file size from detect the file difference using drop down menu.
    
12. Now we are going to schedule this folder synchronization. Select Schedule from left sidebar and select your desired schedule time. I recommend using ‘Wait’ after each run ’2 hours’.
    
13. Now click on advanced and check the forced execution checkbox.
    
14. After this step click on OK. Now we just have to make Bitkinex a service to allow it to run periodically and synchronize your folders in hidden mode. For making it a service go to main screen of Bitkinex and click on ‘File’ in top bar. In the dropdown list click on ‘Run as service’ and provide it your password and give it admin access.
    

Thats all, now we have completely setup a connection with SLATE, now after every two hours (or whatever period you have set) your computer will be automatically synchronized with SLATE. If you want to add more folders repeat above steps with others SLATE folders.

If you are facing any problem or want to ask a question just comment below and I will get back to you as soon as possible.