292310 - Download manager is intrusive (ie works as designed but still a usability problem)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 235286

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, enhancement)

Description

[Greg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3

The download manager is intrusive, obscuring a significant proportion of the
screen. The options to turn it off or have it disappear when finished are
inadequate to meet users' needs to see the download AND continue browsing 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Download a file
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
The Download window sits in front of the browser client window. If I change
focus to the browser window, the download window disappears behind in the
z-order. To review the state of downloads, it is then neccessary to find the
download window (alt-tab, task bar, ...) and give it focus. This is too
disruptive to the primary task of browsing.

Expected Results:  
I can think of at least two possible solutions that would be preferable but no
doubt there are more.
1/ Allow the download window to be docked into the status bar (like the download
progress indicator for e-mail accounts  in Kontact PIM on Linux) - probably with
the _option_ to only show files that are still downloading (ie clear completed
files from the stack). The cancel and open commands could be provided via icons
and/or a context popup menu
2/ Provide the above in a sidebar 
*  or both + current - option for which of the three could be offered in the
settings panel
*  keep Ctrl-Y as the show/hide shortcut

PS please can we have THREE additional categories to cover usability
1/ Usability: user cannot complete a critical task (severity 1)
2/ Usability: user can complete a criticaL task but only by circuitous means - a
non-intuitive workaround (severity 2)
3/ Usability: user can complete a task but the interface could be improved to
make it easier (severity 3)

4/ Usability 'nice-to-have' would be already covered by your 'Enhancement' category

Comment 1

[Elmar Ludwig]

I guess http://dmextension.mozdev.org/ will do what you want.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 235286 ***