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Re: LYNX-DEV Option Needed!


From: David Combs
Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV Option Needed!
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 05:58:17 -0800

> From address@hidden Mon Dec  2 21:30:55 1996
> From: Ted Meyers - EECS (CPTS360) <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 21:14:45 -0800 (PST)
> 
> LYNX needs an line in the .lynxrc file telling where to put downloaded
> files.  Right now it tries to clutter up my home directory.  If I edit
> the directory when I edit the filename I sometimes mess up the filename and
> it is just plain tedious.

This is exactly where my idea of "LCD" ("Local CD") comes
in useful.  When I made the suggestion some time ago,
some people commented that "we don't want lynx to go
and create directories all by itself".  Neither do I,
and I must have made my suggestion in a confusing way.
I try again:

Consider the program "ftp".  It has lots of commands, one of
which, as I recall, is "lcd".

Now, when you start up ftp, it remembers "pwd" somewhere,
and when you tell it go "get" some file, it then grabs
it, and stores it in the file-name-path composed of
the file-name-part (the part after all the slashes) used
for GETTING the file, PREFIXED by that remembered
string that as default has the pwd from startup (with
a slash appended).

What LCD seems to do is simply CHANGE that remembered
string, so that the NEXT time some file is "gotten",
it automatically gets stored in the place where you
have told it to "lcd"-to.  Seems like it is just 
a string for prefixing onto the retrieved file's name.

How do you CREATE a (new) directory to lcd-to (ie, created
for purpose of storing retrieved-files into)?  You
hit ^Z (csh), do the mkdir, and "fg" back.

Or you use "!".  Or whatever.  The important point
is that FTP has nothing to do with the creation of
this directory -- YOU create it with your OWN fingers.

The USEFULNESS of this proposed lynx-feature is that
you can download sets of files, each set from eg a different
www-site, into a separate directory, thus avoiding name-clashes
on eg "README", etc.  And you don't have to keep typing
(er, mistyping) the pathname of where you want it to go,
forgetting sometimes, misspelling sometimes, etc.

LCD makes it (a) much easier, and (b) far more FOOLPROOF,
esp when you have a BUNCH of links/files to download.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding from my
prior suggestion.

PS: I just ran ftp to verify what I said -- you can too:
merely run ftp, and give "?" as the command.  It types
out the names of the commands it takes.

Note the "cd".  That is used on the FOREIGN machine, for
cd'ing up and down its directory tree.  Then note the "lcd":
that is used (I believe) to ONLY reset this prefixable
string for what dir to write into, on the LOCAL machine.

You can also say "help cd" and "help lcd".  Try it.
Say "quit" (not "q") to exit.

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