I had to re-read this a couple of times cause something didn't sound right.

If you follow the procedure you've said (let aw2k do the ftp upload during the listing process), then that's all you gotta do. You don't ever need to manually upload anything to your ftp site - aw2k does that for you.

The source of the files are from the auction lot picture info on your pc. When you first select a picture file from your local pc to include in your auction lot, AW2K takes that picture and stores it internally. When you then list that auction, it sends a copy (named something like LotImg10.jpg) to the ftp location you've specified. Your original picture file(s) (like nicevase.jpg) remain untouched on your PC.

So far as I can tell, the only picture files you must manually upload are any that are referenced in your html listing template that are NOT listed using the aw2k image component. In other words, any direct <img src> type of html code manually inserted into your listings - which makes sense since aw2k isn't "program aware" of those graphic files. But if you aren't doing anything fancy, and stick to the templates provided (with only cosmetic changes), then you shouldn't ever need to manually upload anything.

The /img directory must be an Angelfire thing - not used by aw2k.

And yes, the graphic file is always accessed from the ftp site every time the auction is viewed. Local caching of browser graphics might reduce some of the transfer traffic, but the simple answer is - yes - it's accessed each time.

FTP sites are simply any kind of server on the internet that allow the use of the FTP transfer protocol - one of the internet's oldest and most standard protocols for moving files from place to place.

Hope that helps!
Rich