New Firefox download manager appears in UX build | Hacker News Reader

New Firefox download manager appears in UX build

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Doesn't look as good as the Download Status Bar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-stat...) which I've been using for years. They could have just copied or bundled it.

The problem with that is it takes away vertical space, the exact reason I hate hate hate the Chrome download bar.

Not everyone is on a netbook these days. Even when I use my old sony-tr I much prefer the status bar to another window. I configure it to go away after 15 seconds after finishing, and there is a "mini" mode as well if you're on a crippled machine.

The only time I've ever been remotely satisfied with the download manager in Firefox was when I completely replaced it with an add-on, so I'm looking forward to this change.

Thank christ, the download manager is one of the last remaining bad parts of Firefox.

For anyone who doesn't know this already, running the nightly builds of Firefox is ridiculously easy. Just visit this page.

http://nightly.mozilla.org/

On OS X, I have the stable Firefox.app and bleeding edge Nightly.app installed side-by-side, and never have any problems.

Any techniques wrt using different profiles ? Do you have to monkey with plist files

This is the Nightly UX build, which appears to be something else?

I use Nightly and don't have this feature.

Uh, looks exactly like the new Safari downloads window.

http://limi.net/articles/safari-downloads/

Apple was probably more inspired by their own iPad popovers, which they seem to have implemented in several other apps as well.

iCal: http://cl.ly/9xSk

iPad: http://developer.apple.com/library/iOS/documentation/UserExp...

From parent article: >That’s why it’s so exciting to see our designs being adopted by other browser makers.

Is this designer claiming the design is a Mozilla original and not essentially exactly what's been a UI design in the iPad since release? Or am I reading too much into this?

Just wait - we'll find out that they went forward in time, saw the new Safari method, and went back and wrote a blog post about it.

There is nothing new under the sun. Just when you think you've nailed something, someone's already written a blog post about it.

I am genuinely curious how this is better than what is currently in place; could someone explain?

There is no extra window to manage. (I’m using Safari which already has a similar download window and it’s absolutely awesome for me. I hate managing windows.) The new UI also gives a better and clearer indication about running downloads, though attaching the download window to the main window is not really necessary for that change. (You previously had to have the respective window open and also visible.)

I believe the current problem is that Mozilla has removed status bar so there's no way to know if a file is downloading without a separate window being constantly open. The way to open up download window is not very accessible either, especially on Windows where menu bar is hidden. (OK, you can still access it from the access button on the top left, but still...)

I'm not sure how Mozilla will handle the file saving dialog, but with the current UI, there are two window popups in order to download something: the file saving dialog and the download window itself (which user may choose to open or close it, but require to do so every single time he downloads something). That means before they hide the status bar, you have three UI pieces just for managing a download, with two being intrusive.

The new approach will reduce that intrusiveness interaction to minimum, will have an indicator on active window as long as something is active in the download list and will put everything in a single place rather than all over the UI.

I thought this was first planed for firefox 6. http://www.browserscene.com/2011/04/firefox-6-download-manag...

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