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Firefox biggest annoyance: The download window. I feel like I've taken a time machine to the 90's every time it pops up. Chrome's download bar on the other han

by tjoff 14y ago

Firefox biggest annoyance: The download window. I feel like I've taken a time machine to the 90's every time it pops up. Chrome's download bar on the other hand is quite neat and it doesn't distract your workflow.

electic 14y ago
I wish it was more like Safari's download feature.
gsai 14y ago
Why drag Firefox into this discussion? Firefox has options for customizing everything, and when it doesn't there's always extensions. That's one of it's best features. If you don't like "taking a time machine" Firefox's download window can be disabled using "Show the Downloads window when downloading a file" option.
- lazugod 14y ago
  It's completely fair to judge Firefox on its default design decisions.
  - simonster 14y ago
    It's fair to judge Firefox's design decisions. It's not completely fair to compare Firefox's default design decisions with Chrome/Safari/IE's design decisions, which are more than just defaults. If Firefox had a download bar, you would be able to download or write an extension to make it auto-hide, because Firefox's interface is entirely XUL and is relatively trivially extensible. With Chrome, you can star an issue and hope someone will listen to you, but you're probably going to be ignored.
    - lovskogen 14y ago
      >It's not completely fair to compare Firefox's default design decisions with Chrome/Safari/IE's design decisions, which are more than just defaults. What do you mean by "more than just defaults"?
      - simonster 14y ago
        It takes <1 hour to write a Firefox extension that modifies its UI in a trivial way, and that Firefox extension can be distributed easily. You can do almost anything by modifying the XUL and/or CSS, and there is a good framework and good documentation for doing so. The default Firefox UI is just a default. There are many extensions and themes out there that make it easy for even non-programmers to modify Firefox to look and behave the way they want it to. While it's possible to modify Chromium's UI by changing the source, it's far more difficult, and, unless your changes are accepted upstream, you have to maintain and distribute a whole new set of binaries yourself. If you want to do something like make the tabs square, make the tab bar scroll, or replace the download bar with a panel or a separate window, you're gonna have a bad time. Chrome's "themes" are really just different title bar and tab backgrounds. If you're a non-programmer, you can't really change the Chromium UI at all. The UI defaults are not just defaults; they're the only option unless you want to write a shitton of code. Safari and IE are closed source, so it's extremely difficult to modify their UIs at all beyond the meager options provided to you in the preferences, even if you're a rockstar programmer.
        lovskogen 14y ago
        > It takes <1 hour to write a Firefox extension that modifies its UI Not for anyone using Firefox. Browser software is not just for developers, in fact, the majority of the users is not developers. I think this discussion was from a regular users default point of view of the Downloads window.
        simonster 14y ago
        I think I addressed this pretty well already. Read the whole post.
        lovskogen 14y ago
        Non developers like my mom can extend Firefox to fix a better UI for downloads – and that's and argument for Firefox not to have great defaults?
mcpherrinm 14y ago
Have you seen the replacement UI? https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:DownloadsPanel-Downloading.png https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:DownloadsPanel-Downloading.png For reasons unknown to me, it's been delayed for ages. So long that even Safari has copied and deployed it before Firefox did.
- corin_ 14y ago
  I actually liked the download window in FF, and find this new UI (been using it on Nightly for a while) pretty annoying.
  - dj2stein9 14y ago
    Agreed. Maybe I'm just too used to the download window, but I tried the recent Firefox nightly I instantly cringed when I downloaded a file. I prefer Chrome solution to both.
- velodrome 14y ago
  I like this. It is one less window to manage.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Too bad they didn't patent it.
- lobster_johnson 14y ago
  That's the UI used in Safari 6. It's pretty terrible, in my opinion; it hides too much information in a single button. It's roughly equivalent to Chrome's download bar, except with less information.
  - lovskogen 14y ago
    What info do you need?
    - lobster_johnson 14y ago
xqyz 14y ago
Safari's expanding download button is a lot better than the download bar. Ideally I'd prefer it if you could just disable it and it would open the download window in a background tab instead.
nekgrim 14y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/download-statusb... and it works just like Chrome.
- qwertyz 14y ago
  Actually it's much better: it takes much less space, can be configured to ignore certain file types and can disappear after the downloads are finished.

by tjoff 14y ago

electic 14y ago

I wish it was more like Safari's download feature.

gsai 14y ago

Why drag Firefox into this discussion? Firefox has options for customizing everything, and when it doesn't there's always extensions. That's one of it's best features. If you don't like "taking a time machine" Firefox's download window can be disabled using "Show the Downloads window when downloading a file" option.

lazugod 14y ago
It's completely fair to judge Firefox on its default design decisions.
- simonster 14y ago
  It's fair to judge Firefox's design decisions. It's not completely fair to compare Firefox's default design decisions with Chrome/Safari/IE's design decisions, which are more than just defaults. If Firefox had a download bar, you would be able to download or write an extension to make it auto-hide, because Firefox's interface is entirely XUL and is relatively trivially extensible. With Chrome, you can star an issue and hope someone will listen to you, but you're probably going to be ignored.
  - lovskogen 14y ago
    >It's not completely fair to compare Firefox's default design decisions with Chrome/Safari/IE's design decisions, which are more than just defaults. What do you mean by "more than just defaults"?
    - simonster 14y ago
      It takes <1 hour to write a Firefox extension that modifies its UI in a trivial way, and that Firefox extension can be distributed easily. You can do almost anything by modifying the XUL and/or CSS, and there is a good framework and good documentation for doing so. The default Firefox UI is just a default. There are many extensions and themes out there that make it easy for even non-programmers to modify Firefox to look and behave the way they want it to. While it's possible to modify Chromium's UI by changing the source, it's far more difficult, and, unless your changes are accepted upstream, you have to maintain and distribute a whole new set of binaries yourself. If you want to do something like make the tabs square, make the tab bar scroll, or replace the download bar with a panel or a separate window, you're gonna have a bad time. Chrome's "themes" are really just different title bar and tab backgrounds. If you're a non-programmer, you can't really change the Chromium UI at all. The UI defaults are not just defaults; they're the only option unless you want to write a shitton of code. Safari and IE are closed source, so it's extremely difficult to modify their UIs at all beyond the meager options provided to you in the preferences, even if you're a rockstar programmer.
      - lovskogen 14y ago
        > It takes <1 hour to write a Firefox extension that modifies its UI Not for anyone using Firefox. Browser software is not just for developers, in fact, the majority of the users is not developers. I think this discussion was from a regular users default point of view of the Downloads window.
        simonster 14y ago
        I think I addressed this pretty well already. Read the whole post.
        lovskogen 14y ago
        Non developers like my mom can extend Firefox to fix a better UI for downloads – and that's and argument for Firefox not to have great defaults?

mcpherrinm 14y ago

Have you seen the replacement UI? https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:DownloadsPanel-Downloading.png https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:DownloadsPanel-Downloading.png For reasons unknown to me, it's been delayed for ages. So long that even Safari has copied and deployed it before Firefox did.

corin_ 14y ago
I actually liked the download window in FF, and find this new UI (been using it on Nightly for a while) pretty annoying.
- dj2stein9 14y ago
  Agreed. Maybe I'm just too used to the download window, but I tried the recent Firefox nightly I instantly cringed when I downloaded a file. I prefer Chrome solution to both.
velodrome 14y ago
I like this. It is one less window to manage.
kalleboo 14y ago
Too bad they didn't patent it.
lobster_johnson 14y ago
That's the UI used in Safari 6. It's pretty terrible, in my opinion; it hides too much information in a single button. It's roughly equivalent to Chrome's download bar, except with less information.
- lovskogen 14y ago
  What info do you need?
  - lobster_johnson 14y ago

xqyz 14y ago

Safari's expanding download button is a lot better than the download bar. Ideally I'd prefer it if you could just disable it and it would open the download window in a background tab instead.

nekgrim 14y ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/download-statusb... and it works just like Chrome.

qwertyz 14y ago
Actually it's much better: it takes much less space, can be configured to ignore certain file types and can disappear after the downloads are finished.