You can drag URL's from KDE applications ( like kfm or kmail ) or from Netscape into the Caitoo main or dock window. Then you choose directory and filename, under which you want to save it.
You can open transfer from menu or by keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-o or Ctrl-v. Ctrl-v is especially useful if you use a WWW Browser which does not support KDE drag and drop protocol. Copy the URL to the clipboard, then use Ctrl-v in Caitoo ( or simply press a toolbar button Paste transfer ). Caitoo will then open a dialog with pasted URL, which you can edit.
You can pass URL to Caitoo as an argument on startup :
> caitoo some_url
The same approach works when Caitoo is already running. Instead of starting another copy of Caitoo, it will add argument ( URL ) as a new transfer.
With a distribution comes also a little shell script called
caitooclient. This script does nothing else then invoking Caitoo
with arguments and redirecting standard output and errors to /dev/null.
This might be useful when calling Caitoo from some external programs.
Transfer is always in one of the three transfer modes :
Transfer is in a queue, which means that it's ready to be started whenever it's possible. For better explanation see Queueing.
Transfer is scheduled to be started at some later time. Caitoo checks every minute whether there is some transfer that should be started. It takes into account the maximum number of allowed transfers. Transfer time is set in Transfer Configure Dialog.
Transfer is simply added to the list. Caitoo will not try to start it. You have to start it by hand, or change it's mode to queued or scheduled.
This is useful if you work offline, then you can set Add new transfer as delayed in a preferences dialog.
Use this feature if you have problems with connecting to server or slow connection and want to download files later.
Queueing means that you can set maximum number of transfers that are running simultaneously. Caitoo tries to keep this number. Of course that you can at any time start the transfer by hand.
This does NOT mean that you cannot drag more files into Caitoo then this number !
Caitoo keeps record of all registered transfers and opens them when needed. Use queuing when you have bad connection to Internet or slow modem like me :-)
It is useful also when you do not want to take all network bandwidth you can, but rather download file after file.
Caitoo supports resuming, which is a feature supported by most of ftp servers and is present in HTTP 1.1 protocol. If you download some big file and after 75% of download connection error occurs, you do not have to start all over again, but simply register this transfer again and it will continue in the place where it stopped ( Caitoo will append to an existing file and not overwrite it ).
However, this feature does not work for all ftp and http servers. Caitoo will check, whether server supports this feature, and will show this infomation in the listbox. Later, if you need to stop the transfer, you can easily decide, whether it is a good idea.
HTTP resuming is somewhat special. Please consider it to be experimental and don't rely on it too much.
Expert mode is recommended for experienced users. Generally, when expert mode is on, Caitoo will not ask user to confirm operations.
This applies to deleting of transfer, confirming paste operations and save locations.
If some error occurs while starting transfer or while transfering, Caitoo will not show you the error message, but it will set transfer for retry without asking. This is very useful, if you drag many files into Caitoo and leave to do some other work. Caitoo will download files and when it can't connect, it will continue without asking.
It could be useful to use expert mode together with auto-disconnect / auto-shutdown mode. Drag files into Caitoo, turn on the expert mode, turn on auto-disconnect / auto-shutdown mode and leave.
Caitoo honors the following key bindings.
Ctrl-oOpen a new transfer
Ctrl-vPaste in URL for transfer
Ctrl-qExit program.