669615 - Downloads window / Saved Files list does not persist across startups

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Derek Williams]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0
Build ID: 20110615151330

Steps to reproduce:

downloaded many attachments


Actual results:

the attachment downloaded satisfactorily, but were not listed in a Downloads window, such as is available in Firefox (key command cmd+J)


Expected results:

I would like to suggest a Downloads window be added to Thunderbird, providing identicaly functionality to that currently available in Firefox

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

so cmd-J doesn't do it for you ?

Comment 2

[Derek Williams]

Oh yes, it does - thank you Ludovic!  I had not spotted that before, because it's called 'Saved files', inconsistenty with Firefox where the same keybinding brings up a 'Downloads' window.  Not sure whether that is Feature or Oversight.

However the download history is not saved as it is in Firefox, it is automatically cleared on Quit.  Maybe there's a preference somewhere to change this, but in neither Firefox nor Thunderbird have I consciously set a preference to clear Downloads/Saved Files on Exit.

Even as it is, though, this is still useful, so thanks again!

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

So do you want to change you request into having more save history in that window ?

Comment 4

[Derek Williams]

I think since the two products, Thunderbird and Firefox are 'sister' applications, and in effect successors to Netscape which used to integrate mail and web browsing, it makes sense for there to remain a common standard and nomenclature between the two.

'Downloads' I perceive as being the more universal term, so I'd be advocating changing the behaviour TB to match FF (apart from the bugs in it of course!).  In that sense, yes, a saved history, and the ability to resume any downloads that were interrupted previously, although since there is a size limit of 10MB, that is probably for now, at least until that restriction is lifted, an unncessary enhancement.

This brings up another behaviour in TB, where Save All saves the message as well as the attachment.  I believe almost 100% of the time, a user would be seeking to save all the attachments, rather than the enclosing email message text.  For this reason I suggest that they be compartmentalised, such that either Save All refers to the subwindow that files/messages are in, or there be two commands:  "Save all attachments..." and "Save all messages..." with a browser to the target location.

Comment 5

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> This brings up another behaviour in TB, where Save All saves the message as
> well as the attachment.

"Save all" only saves the attachments, not the message. Do you have an extension that modifies this behavior?

Comment 6

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: Save All popup menu

Retested just now:

In a message with 3 attachments (1 .zip and 2 .mp3's), I right clicked in the attachments pane.  A popup menu offered (see screenshot):

Open All
Save All
Detach All
Delete All

I chose Save All.  This saved the three attachments plus the message itself, which it treats as an 'attachment' (in same screenshot as above).  If I right click again, then I cannot get this popup menu back, and instead it persists in offering up "Customize" - next screenshot after this.

Comment 7

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: Customize that appears on right click

After this, one can only Customize.  It is impossible to get the Save/Open/Delete menu back other than by selecting a different message in the messages window, and then returning to this one.

Comment 8

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Try right-clicking a little bit lower the second time. The Mac theme is not very good here (that'll probably be improved in bug 630759), but the way it works is the top area is the attachment bar (which you can customize) and the bottom area is the attachment list (which you can right-click on to open the context menu). Alternately, you can just click the arrow on the right of the "save all" button to get the same context menu.

That being said, this is totally unrelated to this bug.

Comment 9

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: J doesn't always work

Right after I had downloaded the three items in the email displayed, I pressed J to see and locate the items in the Finder, however the window is blank as you can see from the image attached.  This is Thunderbird 5.0

Comment 10

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: downloaded file not appearing in Saved Files window

This is still not working in V.8 (Release)

Comment 11

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: Step 1 - list of downoaded files

J works but only for current session.  Once Thunderbird is relaunched, the list empties itself.

This behaviour differs from Firefox, which keeps a list of all files previously downloaded, even after relaunch.

Comment 12

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: Step 2 - after relaunch, no files in download list

Comment 13

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: attachment downloaded and saved, but not in Downloaded Files window

Comment 14

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: attachment not opening from this page after uploading

https://bug669615.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=585314

Comment 15

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: still not working - downloaded pdf not in saved files window

still not working - pdf that I just downloaded not showing up in Saved Files window

Comment 16

[Derek Williams]

Attachment: current version of Thunderbird

Comment 17

[ISHIKAWA, Chiaki (I will be tied up until Dec 14 with day job events.)]

Hi,

I come from

Bugzilla@Mozilla – Bug 460930	
blank (and useless) download manager window appears when I save attachment file(s) in thunderbird

and now that version 10.0.1 solved the issue there i.e., now shows
the file pathname in the quickly disappearing window at least),
under linux and windows, I am looking for a feature to 
call up dowload manager like window UI. (Linux and Windows doesn't seem to have "CMD"-j ...)
So I am looking for similar function under Windows and linux.
At least under Window, nothing seems to happen if I hit
Alt-J or Alt-control-J.

Comment 18

[Derek Williams]

However Thunderbird Download History remains only in the current session, blanking itself upon QUIT, unlike Firefox which keeps its Download history on subsequent relaunches.

Would be useful if Thunderbird remembered the same.

Comment 19

[P]

Don't beleive this is fixed...  it's annoying there's no setting that can be changed so the saved files list is NOT cleared on exit....

Comment 20

[Derek Williams]

Even before quitting, the download history doesn't include all filetypes downloaded.

This is by no means fixed.

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

derek, please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#bug_severity

I don't find a duplicate. So => New

Comment 22

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Still valid.

Comment 23

[ISHIKAWA, Chiaki (I will be tied up until Dec 14 with day job events.)]

I wonder where the list of files updated (added and then cleared at the end?).

Comment 24

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Derek, thanks for reporting bugs in this corner, which did exist at the time when this was reported and thereafter (there was a time when almost nothing was added to download manager, and apparently a time where that history got lost upon restart).

We have fixed a number of bugs in this corner, although some still remain (I've added some to "See also").

The download history is now correctly remembered across application restart, which makes this particular bug worksforme (38.2.0 and trunk 43.0a1 (2015-08-13) on Windows 8.1).

Feel free to report any remaining bugs after checking carefully if not already reported; well-formed bugs should have "Saved Files" in their summary, so this search should cover most:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=%3Athun%2Cmailn%20saved%20files&list_id=12495244