Re: LYNX-DEV -crawl, etc: need "filename-filter"

[David Combs]

Just thinking out loud -- but here is a problem I just 
thought I might have at a www site:

This site is top node of an algorithms course, and has
lots of stuff to download, much of which comes in
PAIRS, .tex and .ps.

What I would like is use -realm, and get all the .ps files,
but only those.

Two features would be nice:

1: to be able to supply a regexp that a name has to "pass"
   before being accepted for downloading.

2: more flexibly, but far more time-consuming and i/o,
   would be to do retrieval in two passes: first one
   simply got a list of downloadable names, and stuck
   them all into a file.

   Then the user could use his favorite editor or egrep
   or whatever to get the list of files he DOES want downloaded.

   He then runs (another?) lynx, gives it that file of
   filenames, no "crawling" this time, and it just
   downloads the whole bunch.

   I believe this feature would be useful also for people
   who had simply built up a list of things they wanted
   downloaded, and wanted to "automate" it.

   Note: would need settable option to say "die on error",
   vs just go get next file in list, if link not there.

3: monkeywrench tossed into machine:

   Suppose there were two "README" files, from different
   parts of the foreign tree.  What then?

   Well, what does TAR do?  It creates directories if it
   needs to.  RESTORE (ufsrestore) does same thing, under
    current location it was run from.  Safe enough (except
   for running out of disk space!)

4: I believe different people use lynx for different
   things.  Some people have no use at all for such ideas;
   but others find that all to often they want to read things
    not on screen but on paper, and must first download
   all these little files.  For those who DO this kind of
    thing, the more aid lynx can give to them, the better.

   (Wouldn't it be nice if such www-trees also existed as
    large .ps-files, all downloadable at one piece (even,
   or maybe better, as huge .txt file, so we can reformat
   and print at font WE decide on)).   

   But no such luck -- so we are FORCED to do these
   infinite downloads, IF we want to read on paper, sitting
   in chair, lying in bed, or at desk, marking up with pencil.


Does ANYONE ELSE need above suggested features?  SPEAK UP,
or they never get even eventually done...



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