1845037 - DevTools screenshot and Firefox screenshots are saved in different locations

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: General, task)

Description

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

See https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/screenshot-node-saves-screenshot-to-pictures-instead-of-downloads-folder/121286/2

After Bug 1072345, DevTools will attempt to save screenshots (eg node screenshots) in the "screenshots" directory provided by the platform (Services.dirsvc.get("Scrnshts", Ci.nsIFile)).

In practice, for macos it means we save in Pictures instead of Downloads previously.
However the main Firefox screenshot feature (right click on page > take screenshot) saves screenshots under Downloads for the same scenario.

Should we align the two? And if we think the Downloads location makes more sense, I'm not against reverting the DevTools change, but I just think we should have a consistent behavior here.

Comment 1

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Sam, as owner of the Screenshots component, do you have an opinion on this question?

Comment 2

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

(we have another bug for this in which Sam provided feedback, I'm trying to find it)

Comment 3

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

(In reply to Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe] from comment #2)

(we have another bug for this in which Sam provided feedback, I'm trying to find it)

This was bug 1838053

Comment 4

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Ah thanks, I couldn't find any duplicate. So I guess we can block on Bug 1839949, and once that's implemented, use this value as the screenshot location.

Comment 5

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Moving back to triage.

Changing the default folder to the OS Image folder was intentional because we are not "downloading" anything in terms of network activity, but the whole UX makes the user feel like there is a download happening. Mostly it shows the file in the download popup of the browser.

I think the rationale to keep the Downloads folder for the Firefox screenshot feature also applies here:

we actually call the browser.downloads extension API to "download" the file, which triggers the download animation and highlight on the download toolbar button.

Based on this, users will continue to expect the images to show up in the Download folder, and not in the Pictures folder.
We should consider reverting this.

Comment 6

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

As mentioned by :zcorpan on Slack, macos' built in screenshot feature saves to Desktop by default. I still feel like Downloads makes more sense based on the rationale above, and ultimately users should be able to set a custom folder via Bug 1838053.

Comment 7

[Nicolas Chevobbe [:nchevobbe]]

In triage, we agreed to revert the change and save them to the downloads folder to be consistent with Firefox screenshot.

Comment 8

[Julian Descottes [:jdescottes]]

Attachment: Bug 1845037 - [devtools] Revert DevTools screenshots to use the default downloads directory

Revert the DevTools bits from Bug 1072345 to be consistent with the Screenshots feature from Firefox.

Comment 9

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/9991fc63747c
[devtools] Revert DevTools screenshots to use the default downloads directory r=devtools-reviewers,ochameau

Comment 10

[Cosmin Sabou [:CosminS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/9991fc63747c