Under what type of programming does this fit?

[ombun2]

I have to write a .net windows app that will basically function pretty much as a cheap download manager...i have to embed some links into the program itself and feed them to the user so that he can download them...my main concern for doing this is that I don't want users scrolling down my site and just plugging all the links into download managers...sitting back, while my site cringes in excruciating pain...this way i can feed it to them one link at a time, preserving the bandwidth, and at the same time hideing the links so that they will not be able to manually enter them into download accelerators.

 

I don't really know how to handle the connection to the web site...i'm not going to be using a web service since i don't want any interprogram communication...i just want the program to download any link that i feed to it. My question is...under what category of programming does that fit? I need to buy some books, and learn some materials before I go on, and I want to know in which direction to head...is it network programming?

 

do you think that any of these books will help me?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/002-8279528-0529607?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above%26dispatch%3Dsearch%26results-process%3Dbin&field-keywords=.net+networking&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

[Nerseus]

What you describe would be a WinForms application that uses some of the Web or maybe FTP classes to download information to a local machine. I've used the framework classes to download files from webservers and FTP servers, and I think there are a number of links on this forum.

 

If you don't want users seeing the URL to your files, I wouldn't let them have direct access at all. I'd provide a webmethod (asmx) or webpage (aspx) that can stream the content to the user. Your program can pass up a filename only (or folder/filename) to a webmethod or the filename embedded in the URL (http: //web.com/page.aspx?filename=blah.txt) and do whatever validation you need then stream the file down. With some extra work you could track their session to prevent them from trying to download more than one at a time.

 

-ner

[ombun2]

some of the Web or maybe FTP classes

 

I'm not really a programmer by profession...I just do projects when I need to accomplish a function...for example, I've worked with a datagrid/SQL combo, and I'd have 'some idea' about how to answer about half the questions on those topics on this forum...however I've never used the Web/FTP classes before...since you've not acknowledged my proposed solution of this being 'networking programming' am I to assume that they are something that simply doesn't deal with any of the sockets/ports/protocols issues, and just does basic stuff - so a book on networking would be overkill?

 

I could search on this further by myself, but I'd really appreciate just a link to some code or book, because I'm not sure quite yet...I don't mean to nag...thanks for your help so far

[PlausiblyDamp]

Under .Net the System.Net namespace has several classes to handle http downloads, search these forums and you will also find a class to cover FTP access.

[ombun2]

Under .Net the System.Net namespace has several classes to handle http downloads' date=' search these forums and you will also find a class to cover FTP access.[/quote']

 

Thanks to both of you!