Downloading htmlds

Rohit Khare (khare)
Fri, 10 Feb 1995 11:11:42 -0800

! I've started a hack on NCSA's httpd to auto gzip/gunzip
! on the fly, but haven't had the time to complete it, yet...
! allowing a client to specify an added or truncated extension
! as with the wu.ftpd -- URL: ... somefile.html - client requests
! somefile.html.gz or vice versa. Now with the htmld as well,
! once I get a few minutes to get back to it, I'll also allow
! for somefile.htmld -> client requests somefile.htmld.tgz
! for the WHOLE hierarchy.... There would be times that
! a whole directory tree would NOT be what's desired, though
! so that'd probably only be appropriate for a proxy server
! to request - or make the gnutar use a -T list excluding
! subdirectories.

This is one of the few areas in which WebStep needs to reach out to the server
community: we can't define tags or graphics formats, but we will need to have
clients and servers that can download entire directories, if users want local
copies of vended htmld. What's the right answer:
* clients that "walk the tree" trying to download resources
* servers that package tgz and (clients already can handle it)
I think that vending htmlds definitely calls for packaging the entire driectory
tree: included directories can be slide shows, etc.

Rohit