1756564 - PDF download new tab steals focus even if user switches to a different tab between download start and download end

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Downloads Panel, defect, P3)

Description

[B.J. Herbison]

Background downloads should not become the active tab.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/ and https://beta.healthdata.gov/Health/COVID-19-Community-Profile-Report/gqxm-d9w9 in separate tabs.
2. On healthdata.gov click the Download button.
3. Switch to the Mozilla tab and try to read.

Expected:
3) The Mozilla tab is maintained as the active tab until the user makes an action to change tabs.

Actual:
3) When the download finishes the PDF is opened in a new tab and that becomes the active tab.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I think user expectation is that if I click a thing that should ideally open in the same tab, and because of what the website does, opens in a new tab, we should focus the new tab - if I don't try to do something else in the meantime. So if we wanted to fix this, we would need to somehow determine that the active tab had changed. That seems non-trivial and not that common a usecase.

Comment 2

[B.J. Herbison]

This is a Firefox change, not a web site issue. I've been using the web site for a long time without a problem. The web site downloads the file, but recent changes in Firefox cause the file to be opened in a new tab after the download.

All those slow file downloads (on this site and others) used to complete in the background and just put a notice in the upper right of the window when they finished. Now instead of a notification I can ignore focus is stolen and my current activity is disrupted.

Comment 3

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to B.J. Herbison from comment #2)

This is a Firefox change, not a web site issue. I've been using the web site for a long time without a problem. The web site downloads the file, but recent changes in Firefox cause the file to be opened in a new tab after the download.

All those slow file downloads (on this site and others) used to complete in the background and just put a notice in the upper right of the window when they finished. Now instead of a notification I can ignore focus is stolen and my current activity is disrupted.

Then before, probably you got a dialog box asking whether to save or open the file? That was also an interruption... Either that or somehow your preferences for PDFs got changed - you can change them back to "save to disk" and then you get the behaviour you want. The current setting ("Open in Firefox") is the default.

Comment 4

[hong620]

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #3)

(In reply to B.J. Herbison from comment #2)

This is a Firefox change, not a web site issue. I've been using the web site for a long time without a problem. The web site downloads the file, but recent changes in Firefox cause the file to be opened in a new tab after the download.

All those slow file downloads (on this site and others) used to complete in the background and just put a notice in the upper right of the window when they finished. Now instead of a notification I can ignore focus is stolen and my current activity is disrupted.

Then before, probably you got a dialog box asking whether to save or open the file? That was also an interruption... Either that or somehow your preferences for PDFs got changed - you can change them back to "save to disk" and then you get the behaviour you want. The current setting ("Open in Firefox") is the default.

it's not exact 'focus stealing' he describe about, but new download pannel behavior(show download list when finished)
also stealing the keyboard focus from current webpage that user interact trough keyboard arrow keys.

so as example scenario, if webpage's own viewer somekind using keyboard input to 'change next image' kind behavior,
user could using keyboard to keep going next image then only download certain image user want to,
after new FF download behavior changes, it totally loss focus each time when download something finished (not only PDF or media file scenario),
user have to using hand on mouse again and click current page for using keyboard again.

unfortunatly, that download pannel behavior doesn't had a option for now, might be some high productivity regression on both scholarship, some industrial/medical, and other typical user scenario.

guess before new functional change coming out to release branch, i hope test pilot considering deliver it to 'exact test pilot who using related function much times' base on telemetry data.

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Marco suggested we could compare the source of the download and the active tab and check if they match; if not, open a background tab. We should check if this works for the example in this bug and doesn't have too many false positives (ie cases where we currently open a foreground tab but would start always opening a background tab because of frames or w/e).