wget/TODO

                                 Hey Emacs, this is -*- outline -*- mode

This is the to-do list for Wget.  There is no timetable of when we
plan to implement these features -- this is just a list of features
we'd like to see in Wget, as well as a list of problems that need
fixing.  Patches to implement these items are likely to be accepted.
The items are not listed in any particular order (except that
recently-added items may tend towards the top).  Not all of these
represent user-visible changes.

* Wget shouldn't delete rejected files that were not downloaded, but
  just found on disk because of `-nc'.  For example, `wget -r -nc
  -A.gif URL' should allow the user to get all the GIFs without
  removing any of the existing HTML files.

* Be careful not to lose username/password information given for the
  URL on the command line.

* Support FWTK firewalls.  It should work like this: if ftp_proxy is
  set to an ftp URL, Wget should assume the use of an FWTK firewall.
  It should connect to the proxy URL, log in as username@target-site,
  and continue as usual.

* Add a --range parameter allowing you to explicitly specify a range of bytes to
  get from a file over HTTP (FTP only supports ranges ending at the end of the
  file, though forcibly disconnecting from the server at the desired endpoint
  might be workable).

* If multiple FTP URLs are specified that are on the same host, Wget should
  re-use the connection rather than opening a new one for each file.

* Try to devise a scheme so that, when password is unknown, Wget asks
  the user for one.

* If -c used with -N, check to make sure a file hasn't changed on the server
  before "continuing" to download it (preventing a bogus hybrid file).

* Generalize --html-extension to something like --mime-extensions and have it
  look at mime.types/mimecap file for preferred extension.  Non-HTML files with
  filenames changed this way would be re-downloaded each time despite -N unless
  .orig files were saved for them.  Since .orig would contain the same data as
  non-.orig, the latter could be just a link to the former.  Another possibility
  would be to implement a per-directory database called something like
  .wget_url_mapping containing URLs and their corresponding filenames.

* When spanning hosts, there's no way to say that you are only interested in
  files in a certain directory on _one_ of the hosts (-I and -X apply to all).
  Perhaps -I and -X should take an optional hostname before the directory?

* Add an option to not encode special characters like ' ' and '~' when saving
  local files.  Would be good to have a mode that encodes all special characters
  (as now), one that encodes none (as above), and one that only encodes a
  character if it was encoded in the original URL (e.g. %20 but not %7E).

* --retr-symlinks should cause wget to traverse links to directories too.

* Make wget return non-zero status in more situations, like incorrect HTTP auth.

* Make -K compare X.orig to X and move the former on top of the latter if 
  they're the same, rather than leaving identical .orig files laying around.

* Make `-k' check for files that were downloaded in the past and convert links 
  to them in newly-downloaded documents.

* Add option to clobber existing file names (no `.N' suffixes).

* Introduce a concept of "boolean" options.  For instance, every
  boolean option `--foo' would have a `--no-foo' equivalent for
  turning it off.  Get rid of `--foo=no' stuff.  Short options would
  be handled as `-x' vs. `-nx'.

* Add option to only list wildcard matches without doing the download.

* Add case-insensitivity as an option.

* Handle MIME types correctly.  There should be an option to (not)
  retrieve files based on MIME types, e.g. `--accept-types=image/*'.

* Implement "persistent" retrieving.  In "persistent" mode Wget should
  treat most of the errors as transient.

* Allow time-stamping by arbitrary date.

* Allow size limit to files (perhaps with an option to download oversize files 
  up through the limit or not at all, to get more functionality than [u]limit.

* Download to .in* when mirroring.

* Add an option to delete or move no-longer-existent files when mirroring.

* Implement uploading (--upload URL?) in FTP and HTTP.

* Rewrite FTP code to allow for easy addition of new commands.  It
  should probably be coded as a simple DFA engine.

* Make HTTP timestamping use If-Modified-Since facility.

* Implement better spider options.

* Add more protocols (e.g. gopher and news), implementing them in a
  modular fashion.

* Implement a concept of "packages" a la mirror.

* Add a "rollback" option to have continued retrieval throw away a
  configurable number of bytes at the end of a file before resuming
  download.  Apparently, some stupid proxies insert a "transfer
  interrupted" string we need to get rid of.

* When using --accept and --reject, you can end up with empty directories.  Have
  Wget any such at the end.