Closed Bug 906636 Opened 11 years ago Closed 11 years ago

Download Manager should automatically open while performing downloads

Categories

(Firefox :: Downloads Panel, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Downloads Panel
Version:
23 Branch
Platform:
x86_64
Windows 7
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: brille1, Unassigned)

References

Details

The new Download Panel is very irritating and information hiding.

I regularly find myself closing Firefox while some downloads are still in progress, leaving me with some unfinished downloads, which is very frustrating.

A confirmation dialog popping up when trying to close Firefox might probably help to inform the user that downloads are still pending.

Nevertheless, the Download Panel still is of no valuable information to me. So I would very much suggest to re-add the original Download Manager options to ...

(a) automatically show the Download Manager window when at least one download is in progress,

(b) to automatically close the Download Manager window when all current downloads have finished,

(c) to automatically clear the Download Manager list when Firefox closes.
(In reply to Axel from comment #0)
> I regularly find myself closing Firefox while some downloads are still in
> progress, leaving me with some unfinished downloads, which is very
> frustrating.

For this, we will indeed show a confirmation dialog. See bug 851774.

That said, the old Download Manager is not going to return, so the above suggestions are wontfix.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 11 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Well, thanks.

However, even if the old Download Manager is not going to return, the new Download Panel should still provide an option to permanently showing pending downloads so that it becomes immediately visible which files have already been downloaded without forcing the user to actually requesting the list of pending Downloads by clicking on them.

Or, alternatively, I suggest to add an information bubble window which should pop up whenever a file has successfully downloaded.

Informing is always better than polling.
(In reply to Axel from comment #2)
> However, even if the old Download Manager is not going to return, the new
> Download Panel should still provide an option to permanently showing pending
> downloads so that it becomes immediately visible which files have already
> been downloaded without forcing the user to actually requesting the list of
> pending Downloads by clicking on them.

I think that an add-on could do this, but for the average user it would be very distracting.

> Or, alternatively, I suggest to add an information bubble window which
> should pop up whenever a file has successfully downloaded.

On windows there's a very handy notification in the taskbar, the application button changes color based on downloads status. A similar feature exists on Mac.
Also the downloads button in the toolbar has an animation that is shown any time a download is complete, and the button color changes to green where there are new downloads completed (and no downloads progressing).
> I think that an add-on could do this, but for the average user it would be
> very distracting.

I don't understand how a separate window panel providing information on actions you've actively requested can be distracting. I could't imagine, for instance, to find myself distracted by watching the speedometer while driving a car, too.


> On windows there's a very handy notification in the taskbar, the application
> button changes color based on downloads status. A similar feature exists on
> Mac.
> Also the downloads button in the toolbar has an animation that is shown any
> time a download is complete, and the button color changes to green where
> there are new downloads completed (and no downloads progressing).

There is no intrinsic information coming with color. What color is "Currently downloading three 2 GB files, and one is finishing in 10 seconds so you can stop browsing and prepare to start installing it"?
(In reply to Axel from comment #4)
> I don't understand how a separate window panel providing information on
> actions you've actively requested can be distracting. I could't imagine, for
> instance, to find myself distracted by watching the speedometer while
> driving a car, too.


well, suppose that while you drive your car, there's a popup panel that jumps up and blinks to you above the gear lever every time it changes gear.

> There is no intrinsic information coming with color. What color is
> "Currently downloading three 2 GB files, and one is finishing in 10 seconds
> so you can stop browsing and prepare to start installing it"?

Well, we are not expected to provide that fine grained information, since Firefox it's a browser, not a download manager. there are far better download managers that integrate with firefox and can provide that level of information constantly.
Most users don't care to know how many downloads are ongoing and when the next one will be available, they just care to be notified when downloads are downloading and when they are ready, interrupting browsing may not be the wanted behavior.
Btw, I think windows (at least) provides a tooltip with information on downloads.
I have the impression that we're talking cross purposes here.

The Download Window that came with Firefox for a long time never popped up. It was just another static window, giving gauge information about a long term process that was requested and to be supervised.

And it was even adjustable in Firefox whether the window should appear or not.

So the average user always had an option to choose whether to see the Download Window or not.

I don't see why removing an existing functionality and replacing it with crippled information of no interest can be an improvement.
since my "bug" is a duplicate i'll comment here.

i'm with Axel on this.

1. if it's "selectable" why bother getting rid of it completely? just set it to "off" by default and let people like me/axel/countless others, who like it, to continue to using it.

2. if you aren't fixing it why is: browser.download.useToolkitUI;true an option i can still set?

now on to what **** me off more.

old download window - clear download button.
new download arrow on toolbar - no clear download option
new library window - right click > clear downloads and useless "explore" window frame. why do i care about history/bookmarks while i'm in my downloads list?

i'd download stuff and clear downloads once i'd gone thru everything and the old window was perfect for that. now i have to do so much extra **** to get the same result. isn't the point of updating to make things easier and more intuitive? to me it is... but apparently to you it's the opposite. you are forcing extra steps and useless windows on the end-user.
(In reply to matt from comment #8)
> 1. if it's "selectable" why bother getting rid of it completely?

Because it's a cost to maintain it. We cannot afford that cost, cause it has a benefit for a minimal part of users, so we better spend resources on things that benefit most users. That's why Firefox was created in the first place, to be a simple browser that allows add-ons to extend it, rather than to try to support any use case.

> 2. if you aren't fixing it why is: browser.download.useToolkitUI;true an
> option i can still set?

It's our policy to allow new features to be disabled for a short time, in case the new feature has big issues we can revert to the old behavior. It's not intended for the final users, in the first place. The fact some users use those preferences is an accepted fact but not their primary reason.

FWIW, you may write or ask someone to write an add-on that adds a Clear Downloads button in the downloads panel, on the toolbar, wherever you want. That's the good thing about Firefox, you can make it as you wish, though sometimes we can't make it exactly as you wish, since there are many user cases to take into account for us.
"Because it's a cost to maintain it." 

i'm calling **** on that; it's code is done/complete and it hasn't been exploited so where is the cost to maintain it?
I wonder who does the statistics on who's using which feature and how...

And I'm actually curious to see what those "majority" of users is actually downloading and how they deal with downloading.

I guess this majority of users are all using high-speed broadband connections, accessing tiny PDF files from servers tending to serve each of these tiny files in less than a second.

Well, if this "majority" turns out to be just witless Facebook users, and if FF is now targeting this "majority" of users only, then I'm out of FF. I don't belong to this kind of "majority". And I don't want to support software that's focussing on this kind of users only.
(In reply to matt from comment #10)
> "Because it's a cost to maintain it." 
> 
> i'm calling **** on that; it's code is done/complete and it hasn't been
> exploited so where is the cost to maintain it?

One example is that we've recently changed the back-end to the downloads manager so that it is asynchronous (bug 825588). This is to make the downloading experience smoother, and to block less on the main thread for snappier UI.

Work had to be done to make the panel work with the new back-end (bug 899107).

If the old download window was going to be kept around, we'd have to make it work with the new asynchronous back-end as well. So there's your maintenance cost.
(In reply to Axel from comment #11)
> I wonder who does the statistics on who's using which feature and how...

Apart from telemetry data, we have specific user studies, with selection of candidates across different kind of users: from the technology enthusiast, to the engineer and the newbie.
Fact is, it's hard to design software that satisfies 100% of 500 millions users, that's why something may sound wrong to you, and something else wrong to someone else. You can still reach your personal 100% with add-ons, but noone will ever be able to make a software tailored 100% on you, unless you pay him to make your personal software.
Sure, I agree. But this is a decision hard to take for someone actually downloading files made available by hyperlinks.

Still I wonder who these users are. People who have activated telemetry data sure mostly must be nitwits who are not concerned about Internet security and don't know how to deactivate that option.

Moreover, add-ons are a security loopwhole, allowing third-party applications to run with full privileges in Firefox. Anyone concerned with Internet security will not download any add-ons without scrutinizing it thoroughly. But who does actually have that time. So most Internet security aware people are not going to download any add-ons. If they'd to, they'd accept the risk of being hacked.

So, add-ons are not true alternative to a software delivering necessary features.
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