Best way to download as many as ADO files for a server setup

[Salah Mahmud]

Hello everyone,
We have installed Stata on a server for use in a private network (not connected to the Internet). Installing third-party ado files "on demand" is going to be complicated because we will need to download the necessary files, pass them to a busy system administrator to upload to the server etc. One solution is to download as many ado files and packages we can find in one go. Is there an easy way to download (at least the most commonly used) third-party packages? perhaps an index/registry of such packages? We are comfortable developing a tool to scrape html or query an API.

Thanks,

[Nick Cox]

I note that

foreach d in `c(alpha)' _ { 
     ssc desc `d' 
}

gives a listing of what's on SSC. A rummage through the *.key files would find what's been published in the Stata Journal. (But watch out: a few name clashes arise, no matter how vigilant we all are.)