Link Sequence Downloader QED FAQ

Is Link Sequence Downloader QED a website downloader?

No. While Link Sequence Downloader QED and website downloaders are both used for downloading, they each perform subtlety different tasks.

Website download tools are extremely powerful programs for downloading an entire website (or part of a website).

Link Sequence Downloader QED has been designed to download a sequence of files using a simple but powerful Link Sequence notation. Once this notation is understood, it provides a quick and easy way to download a whole batch of specifically targeted files.

To complete their respective tasks; Website downloaders often behave like a Web Robots, recursively searching new pages for additional links. Link Sequence Downloader QED does not, it only downloads the specifically requested files.

Is Link Sequence Downloader QED a wrapper for the cURL command line tool?

Link Sequence Downloader QED is NOT a wrapper for cURL or any other command line tool.

For those that don't know, cURL is a powerful command line tool for transferring data across the Internet. It is provided with Darwin, and information on how to use it can be found by typing man curl in a terminal window.

The same Link Sequence notation used by Link Sequence Downloader QED is also used in cURL. Indeed cURL takes it further and allows for ranges with letters [a-z], and notation for a set of alternatives {a,b,c}.

Why doesn't Link Sequence Downloader QED use cURL?

Writing my own download method enabled me to implement multithreading the way I wanted and gives me more scope for enhancements in the future (i.e different from those that cURL provides).

Basically it gives me greater freedom.

Why does Link Sequence Downloader QED ignore my website's robots.txt file?

All of Link Sequence Downloader QED's requests come from explicit action by its users. Since all requests come from humans, Link Sequence Downloader QED is not a Web robot or a spider and is therefore designed to ignore your robots.txt file.