Download feature suggestion

[Robert Seymour]

> I hope the developers of OmniWeb listen to this group...

> When I download something I would like a choice as to whether
> to attempt to "open" the file received or just save it.  Most
> of the time I just want to save it and I get annoyed when
> Opener starts firing up when I download compressed stuff from
> an archive site.  It would be cool if there was a preference
> for what to do with downloaded files.  The options should be
> along the lines of: Always Open, Always Save, and Ask.
> Perhaps an additional modification to Always Save option
> would be whether to prompt for where to save it with the Save
> Panel, or to just save it under some default directory I have
> chosen and not ask me any questions.

Command-clicking on the link will bring up a small download panel
with options for open in workspace or open in application (based
on registered extensions).  The open in workspace will bring up
a new file viewer with the item pointed to by the link selected.  This is  
particuarly useful if you want to download a large document through OmniWeb,  
as you can bring up the download panel and then go about surfing around some  
more while that document or file is downloading.

However, this brings up a "competitors implement it, but OmniWeb doesn't  
point," namely multithreading.  While I can download documents as mentioned  
above and still use OmniWeb, the application does not perform more than one  
download at a time.  If you watch the download panel for the command-clicked  
item, it will pause while another download operation is in progress.  I would  
really like to see OmniWeb implement multi-threading so that multiple  
downloads may be accomplished simultaneously as may be done in Netsurfer,  
Netscape, or a variety of other WWW browsers.  With the framework provided by  
NEXTSTEP, this shouldn't be a terribly large amount of work and will improve  
the user interface quite a bit in my opinion.

Regards, Robert

--
Robert Seymour			 seymour at swissbank.com
Swiss Bank Corporation		 (NeXTMail, MIME, PGP accepted)

SBC Internal URL: 	<URL:http://sbcweb/~seymour/>
Internet URL: 		<URL:http://www.reed.edu/~rseymour/>