1 Hey Emacs, this is -*- outline -*- mode
3 This is the to-do list for Wget. There is no timetable of when we plan to
4 implement these features -- this is just a list of things it'd be nice to see in
5 Wget. Patches to implement any of these items would be gladly accepted. The
6 items are not listed in any particular order (except that recently-added items
7 may tend towards the top). Not all of these represent user-visible
10 * -p should probably go "_two_ more hops" on <FRAMESET> pages.
12 * Only normal link-following recursion should respect -np. Page-requisite
13 recursion should not. When -np -p is specified, Wget should still retrieve
14 requisite images and such on the server, even if they aren't in that directory
15 or a subdirectory of it. Likewise, -H -np -p should retrieve requisite files
18 * Add a --range parameter allowing you to explicitly specify a range of bytes to
19 get from a file over HTTP (FTP only supports ranges ending at the end of the
20 file, though forcibly disconnecting from the server at the desired endpoint
23 * If multiple FTP URLs are specified that are on the same host, Wget should
24 re-use the connection rather than opening a new one for each file.
26 * Try to devise a scheme so that, when password is unknown, Wget asks
29 * Limit the number of successive redirection to max. 20 or so.
31 * If -c used with -N, check to make sure a file hasn't changed on the server
32 before "continuing" to download it (preventing a bogus hybrid file).
34 * Generalize --html-extension to something like --mime-extensions and have it
35 look at mime.types/mimecap file for preferred extension. Non-HTML files with
36 filenames changed this way would be re-downloaded each time despite -N unless
37 .orig files were saved for them. Since .orig would contain the same data as
38 non-.orig, the latter could be just a link to the former. Another possibility
39 would be to implement a per-directory database called something like
40 .wget_url_mapping containing URLs and their corresponding filenames.
42 * When spanning hosts, there's no way to say that you are only interested in
43 files in a certain directory on _one_ of the hosts (-I and -X apply to all).
44 Perhaps -I and -X should take an optional hostname before the directory?
46 * Add an option to not encode special characters like ' ' and '~' when saving
47 local files. Would be good to have a mode that encodes all special characters
48 (as now), one that encodes none (as above), and one that only encodes a
49 character if it was encoded in the original URL (e.g. %20 but not %7E).
51 * --retr-symlinks should cause wget to traverse links to directories too.
53 * Make wget return non-zero status in more situations, like incorrect HTTP auth.
55 * Make -K compare X.orig to X and move the former on top of the latter if
56 they're the same, rather than leaving identical .orig files laying around.
58 * Make `-k' check for files that were downloaded in the past and convert links
59 to them in newly-downloaded documents.
61 * Add option to clobber existing file names (no `.N' suffixes).
63 * Introduce a concept of "boolean" options. For instance, every
64 boolean option `--foo' would have a `--no-foo' equivalent for
65 turning it off. Get rid of `--foo=no' stuff. Short options would
66 be handled as `-x' vs. `-nx'.
68 * Add option to only list wildcard matches without doing the download.
70 * Add case-insensitivity as an option.
72 * Handle MIME types correctly. There should be an option to (not)
73 retrieve files based on MIME types, e.g. `--accept-types=image/*'.
75 * Implement "persistent" retrieving. In "persistent" mode Wget should
76 treat most of the errors as transient.
78 * Allow time-stamping by arbitrary date.
80 * Allow size limit to files (perhaps with an option to download oversize files
81 up through the limit or not at all, to get more functionality than [u]limit.
83 * Download to .in* when mirroring.
85 * Add an option to delete or move no-longer-existent files when mirroring.
87 * Implement uploading (--upload URL?) in FTP and HTTP.
89 * Rewrite FTP code to allow for easy addition of new commands. It
90 should probably be coded as a simple DFA engine.
92 * Make HTTP timestamping use If-Modified-Since facility.
94 * Implement better spider options.
96 * Add more protocols (e.g. gopher and news), implementing them in a
99 * Implement a concept of "packages" a la mirror.
101 * Add a "rollback" option to have continued retrieval throw away a
102 configurable number of bytes at the end of a file before resuming
103 download. Apparently, some stupid proxies insert a "transfer
104 interrupted" string we need to get rid of.
106 * When using --accept and --reject, you can end up with empty directories. Have
107 Wget any such at the end.