Usenet Explorer

Sorry if I have missed some documentation or post on this. But it's a quick question.

I'm using the new 2.0, and was wondering how "smart" UE is on what I need to select to download -- and, does a Par2 file need to be one of the first things to download?

Say I have (i know there are only 3 rars here -- pretend there are 90):
-----------------
File.part1.rar
File.part2.rar
File.part3.rar
.
.
.
File.part90.rar
File.par2
File.vol000+01.par2
File.vol001+02.par2
File.vol003+03.par2
File.vol006+05.par2
File.vol011+08.par2
File.vol019+15.par2
File.vol034+27.par2
File.vol061+27.par2
File.vol088+27.par2
-------

Okay -- so do I just need to "download and save" the RARs? Or the Rars, and the SINGLE .par2 file... OR... ALL the above files (all PAR2s)?

If the answer is all of the above, will it "waste" time and bandwidth downloading the extra Pars even if it doesnt need them? Or does it un-queue them when it determines that the par2 checks out?

Lastly, do I need to "force" a par2 file to download "immediately" to get it to start par2 checking the "90" files, or will it keep a checksum and quickly figure this out when it finally gets to a par2 file?

Again, I tried to look at the help, and the forums for these answers -- sorry if I missed it -- I'm excited to figure this out!

the idea is you mark everything for download and let the program to do the rest.

right now to minimize the download volume in all cases you need to have the article queue is sorted by priority (it is default for new installs), then mark the whole batch for download - it will put the zero par2 file first, then the data file, then the recovery files.

when the article queue is sorted by date it will work as well if recovery files are posted after data files, but sorted by date order by itself is like forced and cannot be changed. most posts though are data files first, especially in large well organized groups.

in both cases it will cancel the rest of recovery files when the par2 set becomes complete or repairable; it also won't repair until all data files which can be downloaded have been downloaded. cleanup will work always whatever is the download order.

in the next update i'm planning to consider pausing (not exactly pausing but rather not downloading) the rest of recovery files after a single par2 file from the par2 set has been saved, it would help when article queue is sorted by date and par2 files were posted ahead of the data files, just the matter somehow didn't come up during the test stage, it would be there already. but we need to wait until the next update a little, to give me time to analyze user feedback and bug reports if bugs found in the existing code to prevent too frequent releases.

Okay that all makes sense! Here's some feedback on my first try with it.

I have mine set to DATE (not priority). My files were posted RARs first, then the zero par2, then the normal par2s. I selected everything. It started getting the Rars. At this point (it was before my post here) I thought it would need a Par2 to start checking the files. So I hit the CTRL-I key on the zero PAR2 file. Then it seemed to know about ALL the PAR2 files, even the ones at the botton of the download queue. I let it run to completion on its own, and wasn't able to watch it, but, when I checked this morning, it looks like it did everything perfectly. I have no RARs, it didn't download anymore PAR2s (it must have checked out okay), and it extracted the contents of the RARs into a sub-directory! Pretty amazing stuff!

It sounds like the tweak you mentioned, where it will "put on hold" the extra PAR2s until needed when in "sort by date" mode will get DATE mode (almost? see below) foolproof.

I guess one question I had isn't totally clear in my mind. If I hadn't forced that zero PAR2 file to download near the beginning of my 4.5g worth of RAR download, would it have had to go back and PAR check all 4.5g of RARs when it finally got to a PAR2 file? It's obviously more efficient to PAR2 check each RAR as it's saving and downloading it, rather than having to go back and do it at the "end" of the process. I am guessing that giving it the zero PAR2 file at the beginning of the download process helps it to be more efficient?

better we don't go into this subject further since in the next update it won't download additional par2 file as long as there are data files to download, so whatever is the queue sort/post order all it will minimize the download volume.

it was only a single line of code to add.

the generic answer thus is just mark everything for download in any order without thinking much.