Add text instructions on download/access

[yarikoptic]

prompted by @jwodder in https://github.com/dandi/dandi-archive/issues/1993#issuecomment-2273593108 it would be a nice UX , similarly to how we have on https://datasets.datalad.org/ informing user about datalad install instructions, here we could provide wget invocation to download entire zarr, or otherwise specific dandiset or its folder. We also have already

• https://github.com/dandi/dandidav/issues/71

which similarly suggests integration with external services to instruct users on how to interact with particular files or zarrs.

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic Problem: wget's "recursive" mode is limited to a maximum depth of 5 directories by default. Possible ways to address this are:

• Include --level=inf in the displayed wget commands to disable the maximum depth

  • This seems like it could have the potential to go horribly wrong, especially if a user somehow omits the --no-parent option, which I think would result in wget trying to download everything listed on dandidav.

• Determine the maximum depth of the hierarchy the message is displayed for and use that number as the --level value

  • I do not believe there is an efficient way to do this.

• Don't include a --level option in the displayed wget commands

  • This would result in some (many?) listed wget commands not fetching everything.

• Pick a relatively large fixed depth (10? 20?) and use that as the --level value in all displayed wget commands

  • There would doubtless be some hierarchies deeper than the chosen limit that therefore wouldn't be completely downloaded by the displayed commands.
  • Users are likely to wonder where the level value is coming from.

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic Further problems:

• Because the actual files are on different domains, wget downloads them under different directory hierarchies, and there doesn't seem to be an option to place them "together".

• When downloading a Dandiset version or folder therein, asset metadata also gets downloaded (because there's a link to such metadata in the web view), and the --reject "index.html*" option needed to not save directory listings also results in the metadata being deleted after it's downloaded, leaving behind a tree of empty directories. There may be a way to prevent this with the --exclude-directories option, but I can't get it to work for this.

At the moment, my best wget command is:

wget \
    --recursive \
    --span-hosts \
    --domains=webdav.dandiarchive.org,api.dandiarchive.org \
    --no-parent \
    --content-disposition \
    --reject "index.html*" \
    https://webdav.dandiarchive.org/dandisets/000027/releases/0.210831.2033/

which downloads:

./
├── api.dandiarchive.org/
│   └── api/
│       └── dandisets/
│           └── 000027/
│               └── versions/
│                   └── 0.210831.2033/
│                       └── assets/
│                           └── 1c095f5f-d1e2-45db-b807-fdcfea08c6de/
├── dandiarchive.s3.amazonaws.com/
│   └── blobs/
│       └── 2db/
│           └── af0/
│               └── sub-RAT123.nwb
└── webdav.dandiarchive.org/
    └── dandisets/
        └── 000027/
            └── releases/
                └── 0.210831.2033/
                    ├── dandiset.yaml
                    └── sub-RAT123/

[yarikoptic]

@yarikoptic Problem: wget's "recursive" mode is limited to a maximum depth of 5 directories by default.

I had no idea! I think we are doomed to add/use --level=inf since we never really cared about recording/reflecting anywhere the depth of the zarr* . Indeed --no-parent would be mandatory and thus better be "near" in the line. We could also add --quota with e.g. 101% of zarr size but not sure if good idea and either adds any level of protection really.

* in a hindside might have suggested to be included in checksum but likely would be "too much" . Do you think it would be useful to discuss this aspect?

Actually -- we are in control of manifest generation, we can extract/include that info in the manifest!

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic

we are in control of manifest generation, we can extract/include that info in the manifest!

I got the impression you wanted this for Dandisets and folders within them as well, not just Zarrs.

[yarikoptic]

@yarikoptic

we are in control of manifest generation, we can extract/include that info in the manifest!

I got the impression you wanted this for Dandisets and folders within them as well, not just Zarrs.

right, I wanted indeed... for those we are indeed doomed to just hope for the --no-parent to work out and wget not crawling away from the original hierarchy.

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic I did manage to figure out an rclone command to download a folder nicely:

rclone copy \
    --webdav-url https://webdav.dandiarchive.org \
    :webdav:dandisets/000027/releases/0.210831.2033/ \
    0.210831.2033/

Should we use this instead of wget? Are there any other download commands we should list or consider listing in addition or instead?

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic Ping.

[yarikoptic]

Depending on how we present it -- we might want may be both? e.g. if it could be multiple tabs (wget, rclone, dandi cli , and may be even python etc) -- then people could choose what they have/like etc. I didn't look if there is a simple HTML/CSS/JS way though to make that happen. WDYT?

[jwodder]

@yarikoptic Worrying about how the data is presented is getting ahead of ourselves and ultimately not that important. I'm currently interested in what data should be presented.

[yarikoptic]

Then let's present both -- ugly wget and neater webdav aware rclone.