300524 - Download Manager should be brought to front when download begins

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[Uri Bernstein]

When "Show Download Manager when a download begins" is selected, if the Download
manager is open, starting a download should bring it to the foreground.

Currently, if the DM is obscured by other windows, the user gets no indication
that the download started.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b3) Gecko/20050711
Firefox/1.0+

Comment 1

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Just noting that this is actually the same behaviour as on WinXP and Linux, but
those platforms both have UI mechanisms at the OS-level for notifying a user of
updates to a window that isn't in focus (ie: Windows will blink the task bar
entry of a window)

Comment 2

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

By default, we don't want to switch between windows on every download. It is not
an issue on other platfroms as their "dock" (taskbar) has an entry for every
window, which blinks everytime a download is started.

Also note (hidden) browser.download.manger.focusWhenStarting pref.

Comment 3

[Steve England [:stevee]]

*** Bug 329523 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

While this is a WONTFIX, and while I agree with that resolution, do we want to consider changing the language of that pref so it's not as misleading? Perhaps to something like "[ ] Open download manager when a download begins"?

I'm actually even wondering how useful that pref is in the first place ...