lynx-dev LYNX: do the "override?" msg FIRST (as well as at end?)

[David Combs]

Currently, it isn't until AFTER you have downloaded
some maybe huge (emacs is 50mb!) file that you find
out that you ALREADY have an identically-named file on
the disk.

(Yes, I know, "index", but keep reading anyway.)

When downloading a SERIES of things, like various pieces
of documenatation, faqs broken up by one-item-per-file,
software (.tar.gz) from, say, gnu, and in the middle
of doing it the phone rings, or someone comes by to talk,
or tells you go go asap to some meeting, or you look out
the window (if you have one :-), etc, you can lose
your "place" (mentally) as to what is the NEXT thing
to download.

Yes, many things use simple names, like "index", but
many more (?) have full names, like foo-3.8.2.tar.gz,
and you'd like (maybe) to know BEFORE downloading if
perhaps you ALREADY have it.

Like with a 50mb version of emacs-20.7.tar.gz (I'm making
this up), and you don't find out till MUCH later
(several hours over regular phone line on PPP acct?  Even
CONSIDERABLE time on shell acct! -- until you are told
that you ALREADY have it -- "What's wrong with my
memory -- I did that LAST NIGHT!"  (boy, was I tired!)

---

Of course, you probably want to use the "default" name
for this file-lookup -- rather than asking the user if
he wants to type in something different (AFTER the download
"feels" better to me for that -- although giving me
the OPTION of typing in an alternate-name (which is then
looked up on the disk to see if already there) would
be maybe nice -- and if done, then at the END of the
download, THAT name would be the "default" (which you
could change, if eg you misspelled it the first time) --
and of course the post-download msg would say for
the default in THIS case, "(you explicitly said this:)".
)

---

Anyone think that some such facility would be useful?

Thanks!

David


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