[gnome-network]Download manager

[tapia <tapia eitig com>]

Hi.

This is my first message to this list, and my english isn't very good,
so excuse me if I make some miskates :-)

Well, I talk this morning with rodrigo about writing a download manager
for gnome-network. I'm writing one for Mono, so we can reuse the
analysis.

That's how I think a modern download manager would be, taking as model
the Windows program GetRight:

* Segmented downloads.

The app must allow several connections to a server, or download
fragments of the file from different mirrors. For doing this, GetRight
uses two techniques:

	* Mirror search engines. There are internet services for that.
	  Generally it's not very useful, but sometimes allow you to
	  avoid a slow mirror.

	* If you want to download two files with the same name from
	  different servers, GetRight look if they are the same file. If
	  they are, then it segments the download, using the servers as
	  mirrors.

Each download segment is absolutely independent, and the user can stop,
restart or change the mirror of it.

* Tray Icon. That's my proposal on how to use the tray:

	* The tray icon shows the total download speed, or the used
	  bandwith percent.

	* The tray tooltip show, in separated lines, all the downloads,
	  showing the interesting info. By example:
	  "linux-2.4.22.tar.bz2 - Size: 17.3 Mb - gotten: 64%"

	* left-clicking opens the download manager main window.

	* right-clicking shows a popup menu with the downloads, and
	  clicking on it shows the control window for this download.

* Main window.

Toolbar:

	* New -> New download dialog
	* Start -> Starts the selected downloads
	* Stop -> Stops the selected downloads
	* Start All
	* Stop All

A TreeView with the following columns:

	* A checkbox showing if the download is selected or not.
	* The file name
	* The file size
	* A ProgressBar showing the download percent.
	* Download speed.

* Control Window for each download.

This window shows more info about the download, and let the user "play"
with the download segments: change the mirror, add more segments...

Here you can see a GetRight control window:

www.eitig.com/~tapia/capturas/getright.jpg

-- 
tapia eitig com
http://tapia.eitig.com
--------------------------------
http://www.hispalinux.es
http://www.monohispano.org
http://www.es.gnome.org
Debian GNU/Linux Sid
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"Llevamos cadenas aunque no las veamos,
y somos esclavos aunque nos llamemos hombres libres".
-- Oscar Wilde.