309836 - Ability to change destination filename whilst download in progress

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 234654

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, enhancement)

Description

[Andre Sihera]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

There are two ways to download a file. One is to right-click on a link and
choose "Save Link As...". The other is just to click a link that refers to
something that is not a text-based piece of content, in which case you are
presented with the Download Manager dialog that asks if you want to save the
file or download it to your default Download folder and then open it with an
application installed on your system.

The first approach always allows you to change the name of the file before
it is saved, in case the file has some random-generated filename. However,
the second method of downloading into the default download directory does
not allow you to change the name that should be used to save the file on your
local machine. In this case you can't leave the Download Manager to diligently
download all your files as you have to be renaming them outside of Firefox
as they are downloading.

A serious pain in the neck, especially when the filenames bear no resemblance
to anything meaningful.

There are two ways to fix this problem:

1) When presented with the Download Manager dialog to select a different
   destination directory, you are also presented with an option to change the
   name of the file as well.

   This method gets in the way of automated downloads (i.e. just clicking on a
   link and it being automatically added to the Download Manager).

2) Keep the current method of just clicking on a link and it being automatically
   added to the Download Manager (very slick) but then add a menu option to the
   Download Manager Window, and also to the Context Menu for a right-click on an
   individual file, that allows you to change the destination name as it is
   downloading.

In fact, there is already a mechanism in place for a possible solution: The
"Propertes" option on the Context Menu. During file download, this dialog has
two fields: the source and destination filenames. The only problem is, they're
currently both read-only. If the destination was made into a *changeable* text
edit field then this feature could be added very easily.

I did inspect the file download process and it appears that the destination file
isn't written to until the download has completely finished, whereupon the cache
version of the downloaded file is copied to the final destination. Thus it could
be quite feasible to change the name whilst the download is in progress.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 234654 ***