[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="https://id.koumbit.net/anarcat"
 ip="2001:1928:1:9::1"
 subject="comment 5"
 date="2014-04-01T04:43:16Z"
 content="""
re #3, sure, magnet link support would be awesome as well but i'd prefer to start with something i could digest more easily.

looking at the source, it seems to me that the [quvi implementation](http://source.git-annex.branchable.com/?p=source.git;a=commitdiff;h=46b6d75) could serve as an example as to how this would work. more particularly, there's this concept of a [downloader](http://source.git-annex.branchable.com/?p=source.git;a=commitdiff;h=46b6d75#patch5) that can be used to tap into `addurl` directly. there's a check to see if the downloader is supported, for example.

so we would need:

1. see if the URL / magnet link can be turned into a .torrent somehow
2. figure out what the filename(s!) will be
3. start the torrent and wait for its completion, ideally with some progress bar

i asked around to see if transmission-remote could do this, because it would be nice if we could use an existing daemon (instead of having to rebootstrap the whole DHT at every download). so far, I can't see how it could be done cleanly - maybe we would need to use the simpler \"bittorrent\" commandline client, or maybe tap into libtorrent...

in any case, one of the key problems here is that addurl assumes that the URL maps to a single file, not a directory full of file, which is the way bittorrent works. I am not sure how to fix that assumption.
"""]]
