227343 - RFE: FB should by default ask what to do if downloading where local file with same name exists

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, enhancement)

Description

[Yusuf Goolamabbas]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031201 Firebird/0.7+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031201 Firebird/0.7+

Currently, if you have set the followowing via Tools->Options

a) Save all files to a folder
b) Do this automatically for various file types (eg zip,gz,tar)

Then if you were to download a file (say nightly Win32 Firebird build), then FB
switches to non-clobber mode and appends a -1, -2 extension to the filename

This is non-intutive, I don't know of any other browser doing this and this
seems to violate the principle of least astonishment (POLA)


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set Downloads to go to a folder
2. Set that all files of type zip are automatically saved to that folder and you 
   shouldn't be asked again
3. Download the Win32 FB build
4. Download the Win32 FB build again

Actual Results:  
You have 2 files saved in the Download Folder
MozillaFirebird-win32.zip
MozillaFirebird-win32-1.zip


Expected Results:  
Detected file of the same name exists and asked whether you want to overwrite it
This is what Opera/IE does

Comment 1

[Ali Ebrahim]

I agree with the reporter that appending -1, -2 to filenames is quite
counter-intuitive. If a file with the same name exists, the user should be
presented with an option asking what to do:

a) Overwrite
b) Append some number
c) Cancel

The user should optionally be able to select a default behaviour, but by
default, it is very confusing for something like this to happen, particularly if
the user is not expecting this behaviour (which is going to be everyone using
Firebird for the first time).

Am setting All/All and reassigning to Ben since the download manager belongs to
Ben, not Blake.

Comment 2

[alanjstr]

It is usually
1) Overwrite
2) Choose new name
3) Cancel

And would bring up the standard save file dialog.

There might need to be a setting to never clobber, in which case it would go
into -1, -2, -3 mode.

Comment 3

[Ali Ebrahim]

An additional idea would be to append timestamps instead of numbers. Just
something to think about.

Comment 4

[alanjstr]

Per Ben: confirming and targetting for 0.8 to add hidden pref.  We'll see which
people prefer.

Comment 5

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

OK. I've thought about this some more and I'm going to mark this WONTFIX. 

Here's a somewhat detailed explanation of why. 

First, I need to tell you about how the download code used to work, then I'll
tell you about how I massaged it about 2 months ago, prior to 0.7.

Before Firebird 0.7, there were two options, as with now, that controlled the UI
that was presented when you begun to download a file. The options were, "Ask me
where to save every file" and "Save all files to this folder" (where a folder
could be specified. 

What I am describing now is the behaviour that you will see in Firebird 0.6. If
you have the pref set to "Save all files to this folder", and you drag a link
into the download manager sidebar, the download will automatically begin
downloading to the specified folder. If the pref is set the other way, dragging
a file into the download manager appears to do nothing. If you click on a link,
you are asked where to save the file _regardless_ of how the pref was set. This
was somewhat sub optimal. 

There was a desire on my part to clean up certain aspects of downloading with
special regard to this particular function - as people generally download all
their files to one place, and files generally have useful names, it seemed like
the Mac style of downloading - where all files are downloaded with their default
filenames to the download directory with minimal or no prompting at all, was the
way to go. Unlike Mozilla testers, regular users don't generally download files
with the same name over and over to the same location, so the MacOS X's behavior
of appending -1, -2, -3 etc seemed like the best way to save the URL quickly and
without annoying prompts. 

In Firebird 0.7 I made some changes to the external helper app service to for
the first time make both link clicks and download manager drags behave
identically with respect to this download preference. Since this style of
downloading is used by all Mac browsers for as long as I can remember, there was
also a need for it to be the default setting of the preference on MacOS X, so in
the 0.7.1 MacOS X timeframe I decided to turn "AutoDownload" (as I call it) on
by default. 

However I like the Mac style of downloading so much, because of the reasons I've
described with respect to efficiency, fewer annoying popup windows, etc, that I
decided to make it the default everywhere. This landed on the trunk after 0.7
was released so if you've created a profile since you will have noticed the new
default. 

The goal with AutoDownload is to eliminate all prompts from the download
experience once a download action has been selected (either by the user from the
Unknown Content Type dialog, or automatically from an existing entry in the
Helper Applications Datasource). The goal is to make the _best decisions_ for
the user, and increase his or her productivity as a result. 

Because we're making decisions for the user there is a tradeoff. The tradeoff is
a compromise on what names files are downloaded to. I've decided that if you
want to control this, and if you want to have new files with the same name as
older ones overwrite those older ones, you should flip the master pref back to
"Ask me every time". Then you will get the dialog that asks you for the name,
and you can opt to overwrite existing files. 

As a result, this bug becomes WONTFIX. Someone is free to tackle this as an
extension however. 

Comment 6

[[e-mail]]

(Posting this here, because you give an explanation for you decisions here, but
there are several bugs now filed for reverting the default behavior)

Ben please do not force your personal preferences on everyone else at least not
on non-Mac systems.
The current way of having autodownload as default is bad in many ways:
1) it is unexpected and confusing: practically all other applications do show a
download dialog, so if none is shown it looks as if the function does not work.
People will try several times until the either give up or find out about the
changed behavior.
2) Especially on Linux, this behavior is totally against all established
interaction paradigms. 
3) Many people do NOT want to store downloaded files in the same directory, but
want to decide where files belong.
4) often filenames are non-descriptive or just the name of a cgi script - if yo
do not show the dialog, users have to remember how to rename later. They might
have downloaded different files from the same CGI which will result in utterly
confusing situations
5) On Linux, with many Window managers there is no concept of a "Desktop". Even
if there is, many people do not want to have files placed there

In all, the decision to make this default was a very bad UI design decision. Why
not make the default to display the download dialog, maybe showing the "Desktop"
folder by default and have a checkbox for "always save files in this directory"?
This way people would know what is going on, they would know that there is a
preference for changing the behavior and they would not be taken by surprise. 

Comment 7

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 271037 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

*** Bug 301824 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Bob]

So my bug 310199 has been marked as a duplicate of this.  I see that this one has been resolved WONTFIX.  Is this a final decision?  There are some pretty valid use cases for wanting different behavior.
Thanks,
Bob