Thanks everybody; I didn't know ftp programs could do this (I've only used the "dos" command line version before...). Anyway the first suggestion worked fine for me -- smartFTP and I got the job done. I had the problem with the hidden files too but looking at their faq I found the option to turn on display of hidden files which is a tick box on the command/connection/listoptions menu.
Well my scripts are up and running fine now -- problem I now have is that I can't find a smooth way to get this to publishing to coexist happily with this. Problem is that the scripts create data files -- but then when I publish from Front Page it sees these "extra" files and removes them. I tried copying the files from the server into my local copy -- but all that means is that whenever I publish it copies the (old) verson from my PC to the server overwriting any new data on the server.
I realize FrontPage is not that bright and considered switching to something else but surely this is a generic problem, I've used Dreamweaver before and when it "puts" the site it'll overwrite too.
Any suggestions on how to avoid this? I presume its a typical need, to maintain your offline editor with "publish" or synchronise capability, but not to mess with cgi create data files.
Hony