[Wacsip-users] Some thoughts on download mechanisms

[Beaky <wa...@be...>]

I thought I'd just let you guys know that there's some significant new
work just added into the SVN repository related to downloads.  The
existing Wacs download mechanism is getting a bit long in the tooth but
we're not quite ready to tackle a big re-write of that just yet.

However the "download experience" has been decaying quite a bit of late
with the major sites adding various new techniques like image capture to
foil automatic download solutions.  Additionally, Firefox have stopped
keeping a text-version of the cookies cache available for us to read,
which makes things harder too.

The thing is that Wacs sits on the fence between being a collection
management tool for private individuals and a content management system
for adult content providers.  We know from a providers point of view
what a pain (and expense) it can be if someone really hammers your
download servers pulling loads of material they'll never be able to use.
At the same time, we also understand how important it is to collectors
to check that they have everything which is available by a favourite
model, and have an easy way to check up on and download any new material
that has been added recently.

The new tools we've added, which will be included in Wacs 0.8.4, try to
assist in the downloading of new content by working co-operatively with
a web browser rather than trying to engage with the remote website
directly.  You can save a model's main index page and have it parsed
direct from the saved version; you can view a download "To Do" list and
click on the relevant link in order to do the actual download, and you
can have Wacs check up on the files you've ticked as having been just
downloaded.

We hope these tools will work better with a wider range of sites, help
the collectors to build and manage their collections and at the same
time respect the content providers concerns about their servers and
bandwidth being excessively consumed.  Although we've always stayed away
from completely automatic downloading, we feel this web browser
assistance model of download sits better with our twin objectives of
helping both collector and content provider.  It also puts users of Wacs
even further from accusations of using techniques banned by many sites
terms of service.

Cheers
Beaky.