782334 - Should the History menu and History queries (in the Library and in the sidebar) list downloads?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

The History menu and the History queries in the Library & Sidebar list downloads. I've always found this somewhat confusing (it tends to make entries in the history menu open Save As dialogs...), but I guess that's just me. However, it's sure becoming more of an issue with the soon-to-land (well, hopefully) UI introduced in bug 675902 (Manage downloads in the places Library).

There we introduce a special view for the Downloads query. It'll list both current downloads and history downloads. The UI for both kinds of downloads will behave more like the current Downloads Manager than like other places views. For example: (*) the context menu will have items like "Show in Finder" rather than "open in a new window" (as we do today for Library downloads); (*) the icon for the download would be the file icon rather than the site-favicon.

This all works as expected if downloads are excluded from the general History queries. However, if we let downloads and site-history mix together, there are two things we could do:
(1) Handle downloads in this mix as regular pages (having the standard places context menu, page favicon, no download "commands").
(2) Treat them as downloads regardless.

I'm in favor of excluding downloads, but I can see how it would could confuse users who have a more abstract view of Browsing History ;) If UX is concerned about those, I think the former option above is better than the later. Your call though!

____
Note: I've fix-in-hand for excluding downloads, easy and straight forward.

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I think the current situation is fine, downloads commands are just handled in the downloads view, while in history they are just handled like common history entries.