Re: lynx-dev Lynx and macros?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

>From:   Philip Webb <address@hidden>
>> I would like to be able to download patents more easily
>> from  http://patent.womplex.ibm.com .
>> Can I automate the downloading with Lynx? Does it have any macro language?
>
>as TD pointed out, Lynx has no macro-language capability.
>the usual recommendation for this type of thing is  wget :
>you can find links to that & other downloaders on the Main Help Page.

I bet wget cannot be as selective as a possible macro language in Lynx.
Imagine following situation:
  after deciding to download the patent pages (images only), I move
  Lynx's focus to link "View Pages";
  pressing a macro button applies following script:
      go through the link
      press arrow-down
      if link has name "fetch rest of the pages", then
          go through the link and abort after 5 seconds
      else
      5 times arrow-down
      go through the link
      8 times arrow-down
      download the image on link
      5 times arrow-up
      go through the link

and so on... there would be a while loop until "next page" link
is a link to image (instead of html page).

This all relies on that user finds out the pattern. And there is absolutely
no harm done because macro does exactly the same steps than user would do
manually. Some sleeping time could be added between operations, afterall,
Lynx is not a robot and should not be.

If wget is cabable of doing the above and downloads only the needed images,
then I would like to hear more about it.

Juhana