Re: [Edbrowse-dev] background list

[Chris Brannon <chris@the-brannons.com>]

Karl Dahlke <eklhad@comcast.net> writes:

> Also not sure at all if the server is terribly happy about a download
> that is paused for more than a couple minutes.

Both ftp and http have mechanisms for resuming a stopped download.
E.G., in http, you can specify a range of bytes to retrieve.
The ftp protocol has had a restart command since RFC 959.
If you use wget for downloading, and you stop a download in the middle,
you can pass --resume to restart it where it left off.
If we were going to implement suspend/resume, we wouldn't just pause the
process with SIGSUSP, we'd terminate it completely, and then restart the
download where it left off, using the appropriate mechanism for the
protocol.  Yep, it's going to add complexity.

The main reason someone would want this feature is intermittent network
connectivity.  It was quite useful back in the days of dialup,
especially when multiple family members shared the same line for voice
and data.  Intermittent connections are still a problem with laptops
that use wifi or cellular tethering.

-- Chris