I absolutely agree. This would make it possible for several apps to share a single app for this particular task ( especially important due to the fact that a download manager often will still be required when the browser has been closed already ). Furthermore there are other apps which could utilize a download manager ( e.g. managing a big file download from nautilus when accessing an ftp site, drag drop a file uri from a text file - more cases I don't think of yet ).
A very nice download manager has even been developed a few years ago which in my opinion would do this task pretty well : http://downman.sourceforge.net/ It has several features which I think are very good : - It offers a command line tool to manage downloads, so that downloads can even be continued from console - It seperates different tasks into different apps ( gui, commandline tool, daemon, drop target ) Sadly there has been no development going on for some time, but maybe this tool could be pushed. Some things could be improved ( tray icon for finished downloads notifications or an applet ), but I think it is usable even in its current state to some degree. Best regards, Norman Am Samstag, den 12.11.2005, 23:19 +0000 schrieb Michael: > Epiphany has a download manager built into it. Of course Epiphany > needs a way to download files, but I think it would be better to > separate the download manager into a separate application for three > reasons. > > 1. If someone sends me an email with a link to a file, clicking that > link in Evolution opens up a blank Epiphany window, and Epiphany then > offers to download the file. Separating the download manager would > avoid the unnecessary step of opening an Epiphany window, which I just > close. Perhaps it would reduce the time for the download to start, > too, if the download manager did not have to wait for Epiphany to > load. > > 2. By separating the download manager into a separate program, it would > be easier (from a UI point of view, and perhaps a programming one too) > to add support for BitTorrent and perhaps other similar protocols. > This functionality perhaps could become part of a built in download > manager, but the additional UI necessary would be dfficult to justify > in a built in manager. In a separated manager, it would still be > necessary to maintain a simple, clean interface, but it would be > easier to do so. > > 3. A separate download manager would also conform better to the unix > ideal of one program, one task. This ideal may not be universally > applicable, but in this case I think it is relevant. > > Any thoughts? > Michael _______________________________________________ epiphany-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/epiphany-list
