407450 - common download case of "save without asking" doesn't work

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

In the Main prefs pane, "Save files to [foldername]" is an alternative to "Always ask me where to save files".  However, most menu entries are of the form "Save Foo As..." where Foo is "Image" or "Page", and (almost?) always seems to throw up the file picker dialog for naming purposes.

We should either

A) title the pref something like "Automatically save files to [foldername]" for clarity and make it actually work.  If we do this, we'll need to decide on a mechanism for defaulting the format to save in (text, html only, web page complete).  Note that the pref is currently set by default on Windows, but since it doesn't actually work, fixing this will be a change in behavior

or

B) make "Save Foo" menu entries available in at least some places either in addition to or instead of "Save Foo As..."  Safari, for example, has "Save As..." in the File Menu, "Save Page As..." in the content context menu, and both "Download Linked File..." and "Download Linked File As..." in the link context menu.

Fixing this would have the side effect of making bug 299372 much less painful, I believe.  (Though I hope to have a fix for that soon anyway).

Comment 1

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

Not a blocker as it's not a regression, and I don't think we want to start changing what I understand to be fragile codepaths here.

(In reply to comment #0)
> In the Main prefs pane, "Save files to [foldername]" is an alternative to
> "Always ask me where to save files".  However, most menu entries are of the
> form "Save Foo As..." where Foo is "Image" or "Page", and (almost?) always
> seems to throw up the file picker dialog for naming purposes.

FWIW, the ellipses is always used to indicate "There will be another dialog asking for more detail if you select this function".

> A) title the pref something like "Automatically save files to [foldername]" for
> clarity and make it actually work.  If we do this, we'll need to decide on a
> mechanism for defaulting the format to save in (text, html only, web page
> complete).  Note that the pref is currently set by default on Windows, but
> since it doesn't actually work, fixing this will be a change in behavior

Well, it doesn't actually work for "Save As ..." right? It does work for when a user clicks on a link and starts a download. The majority of download links on the web work that way, but I do empathize with what you're saying.

> B) make "Save Foo" menu entries available in at least some places either in
> addition to or instead of "Save Foo As..."  Safari, for example, has "Save
> As..." in the File Menu, "Save Page As..." in the content context menu, and
> both "Download Linked File..." and "Download Linked File As..." in the link
> context menu.

Yeah, I think I prefer this, since I know a lot of people use the "Save Foo As..." function as a way of getting around the default download directory.