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User:P.A./Panel-based Download Manager

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Status

Panel-based Download Manager
Stage Development
Status In progress
Release target Firefox 14
Health OK
Status note `

{{#set:Feature name=Panel-based Download Manager

|Feature stage=Development |Feature status=In progress |Feature version=Firefox 14 |Feature health=OK |Feature status note=` }}

Team

Product manager Asa Dotzler
Directly Responsible Individual Marco Bonardo
Lead engineer Paolo Amadini, Jared Wein
Security lead `
Privacy lead `
Localization lead `
Accessibility lead `
QA lead Simona Badau
UX lead Alexander Limi
Product marketing lead `
Operations lead `
Additional members Sinchan Banerjee, Stephen Horlander, Shawn Wilsher, Mehdi Mulani

{{#set:Feature product manager=Asa Dotzler

|Feature feature manager=Marco Bonardo |Feature lead engineer=Paolo Amadini, Jared Wein |Feature security lead=` |Feature privacy lead=` |Feature localization lead=` |Feature accessibility lead=` |Feature qa lead=Simona Badau |Feature ux lead=Alexander Limi |Feature product marketing lead=` |Feature operations lead=` |Feature additional members=Sinchan Banerjee, Stephen Horlander, Shawn Wilsher, Mehdi Mulani }}

Open issues/risks

`

Stage 1: Definition

1. Feature overview

This is a page I'm using to track the current status of the Panel-based Download Manager feature at a level of detail I'm comfortable working with. This feature is part of the download user experience improvements.

FEEDBACK

If you have questions (or better, answers!) the best way to provide feedback is to add a comment to the relevant bug.

I'll update this page periodically to reflect the current status and make sure that all the relevant items are tracked.

The latest build can be found here:

  • LATEST BUILD
    • Tryserver builds expire after a few days, if the above link does not work, you can try here or ask for a new build on bug 564934.

I've read all bug comments, and updated this page accordingly, up to this point:

It's possible that some of the latest comments are not yet reflected in this page. See below for detailed tracking of individual items.

The current Download Manager user interface is not optimized for several common use cases, and is not yet integrated with the latest Firefox user experience design. Integrating this interface with the latest design is the first step to improve the downloads user experience.

In the new design, an easily accessible panel shows you current state of downloads, your recent downloads, and gives you a good indicator of how far along your download is. Advanced operations like searching, clearing entries, sorting, and everything else related to download history is integrated with the interface for browsing history.

Goals

  • Fit in with the overall goals of download user experience improvements.
  • Remove the need for a separate Download Manager window.
  • Unify download history with browsing history.
  • Support common use cases, but not necessarily all of those supported previously.
  • Improve the user interface code, and use asynchronous database queries.

2. Users & use cases

We also probably want to consider some, but not all, of the use cases previously suggested for the Download Manager. Note that the current Download Manager does not support all of suggested use cases, while some of them are in the scope of different download user experience improvements.

3. Dependencies

`

4. Requirements

`

Non-goals

  • Power user fuctionality, like handling many concurrent downloads.
  • File management, except for showing where the target file is located.
  • Improve download performance or general front-end responsiveness.
    • Note that we still don't want to introduce significant regressions.
  • Improve the Download Manager or Places back-end C++ code, or make it asynchronous.
  • Any other improvement already defined as download user experience improvements.
    • For example, streamlining the entire download process.

Stage 2: Design

5. Functional specification

`

6. User experience design

We'll reach the stated goals by moving the interface for handling current downloads in a panel, anchored to a status indicator in the main browser window, and adding a new Downloads predefined folder to the Library window.

In the following sections, entries are marked with these indicators:

  • [ON TRACK] Not yet implemented.
  • [INPUT] Needs design feedback, or a prototype implementation to understand what to do.
  • [DONE] Has an initial implementation that can be tested.

Downloads indicator

Provides a status overview, visible during normal browsing when there are download notifications.

  • [DONE] Always visible, located on the navigation bar by default.
    • [INPUT] Maybe, only shown when there are download items in the panel, either active or completed.
    • [INPUT] Maybe, also shown after the last download is removed from the panel, giving access to downloads history only.
  • [DONE] When there are no active downloads, shows the classic button icon (downwards arrow).
  • [DONE] When there are active downloads, shows a progress bar and a compact indication of the remaining time, if known.

Provides visual indication of new downloads or completed downloads.

  • [DONE] New downloads are notified with a brief animation near the indicator.
  • [DONE] Finished or failed downloads make the indicator glow until the panel is displayed.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or moved to an invisible toolbar, the usual screen-level notification is shown when all downloads are completed.
    • Note that, even when the indicator is visible, the screen-level notification is still shown in addition to the indicator notification.

Provides the anchor for the panel.

  • [DONE] Located in the navigation bar by default.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or is located in an invisible toolbar, we show it temporarily in the default position or in the tab bar when the panel is opened, until the panel is closed.
  • If we need to show the panel and both the tab bar and the navigation bar are invisible, then:
    • [DONE] For user-initiated requests (like the Downloads menu item), show the panel without the anchor, near the default anchor position.
    • [DONE] For user-initiated requests, if there is no browser window open (like clicking a screen-level notification, or the Downloads menu item on OSX), open a new browser window and show the panel there.
    • [DONE] For background-initiated requests, do nothing.

Downloads panel

The entries in the popup panel are just notifications saying that a download is going on, and that a download has finished.

The panel works as follows:

  • [DONE] The panel should be shown automatically for the first download of the browsing session.
    • [INPUT] Maybe show the panel automatically only for the first few sessions, not for the first download of every session.
  • [DONE] The panel can be fixed-width.
    • Resizeability is not as much of an issue with the downloads panel as it is with the bookmarks panel, because the downloads panel is less of a "management" interface. The full title of a download is shown in a tooltip.
  • [ON TRACK] When there are no download items, the panel's width can be smaller.
  • [DONE] Notifications are sorted by start time, most recent first.
    • It's consistent with notification sorting in other platforms, and the order doesn't change unexpectedly while the panel is open.
    • Another option is to show first the items on which an action is more likely, i.e. completed downloads first, then failed, then running downloads.
  • [DONE] The height of the panel should be limited in order for the panel not to expand to the full screen height.
  • [ON TRACK] The panel should not to expand to the full screen height.
  • [DONE] When there are more items than the panel's height allows, a scrollbar should be visible for accessing all the downloads.

Individual notifications have the following behavior:

  • Notifications should disappear as soon as the user is done with them. We can't know the exact moment, so we use a set of heuristics.
    • [DONE] Completed downloads are removed from the list when the last browser window is closed.
      • Active downloads have no session boundary. When the browser is closed and reopened, they're paused and resumed automatically whenever possible.
      • Completed downloads are not restored if the previous session is restored. They can still be accessed from the Library window.
    • [DONE] Canceling a running download does not make the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Manually removing a download from the list is possible, but not a top-level interaction.
  • There are no actions that make sense on more than one notification at a time.
  • [DONE] The height of each notification does not change when its state changes.

The layout of a notification includes a main area with the download's distinctive details, and an optional action button. In some states of the download, the main area can be clicked. Double-clicking the main area, instead, is not a supported interaction.

A context menu for the item can always be displayed, though it never contains commands already available through a top-level interaction.

  • [DONE] When the main area can be clicked, a link-style mouse cursor is displayed on hover.
  • When the download is ongoing [not paused or finished or canceled]:
    • [DONE] The button cancels the download.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to pause, open containing folder, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download is paused:
    • [DONE] The button cancels the download.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to resume, open containing folder, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download is failed or canceled:
    • [DONE] The button retries the download. Often, the download will resume from where it stopped, if supported by the server.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to remove from list, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download has finished:
    • [DONE] Clicking the main area opens the file.
    • [DONE] The button opens the containing folder.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to remove from list, go to download page, copy download link.

There are additional items in the context menu that act on all downloads:

    • [DONE] A context menu item is available for removing completed downloads from the list, without closing the last browser window.

Library window

The Library window allows the user to find and open previous downloads.

  • [DONE] Items can be found by source location or original target file name.
    • Note that downloaded entries can be mixed with normal pages in history results, and a normal web page can be downloaded locally.
  • [ON TRACK] You can see the full target path of the download.
  • [INPUT] In all history views, we want to visually mark those entries that are downloads and whose target file exists, unless the entry was also visited as a normal page.
    • [ON TRACK] Double-clicking those entries opens the target file instead of navigating to the source URL.
    • In other words, we open the file in those cases where we expect that double-clicking the history entry would make the download dialog appear.
  • [ON TRACK] In the Downloads view, the size of file, and time should be there too.

Stage 3: Planning

7. Implementation plan

`

8. Reviews

Security review

`

Privacy review

`

Localization review

`

Accessibility

`

Quality Assurance review

`

Operations review

`

Stage 4: Development

9. Implementation

Bugs list and patch queue

Feature tracking bug for general feedback:

Relevant patches that are available in nightly builds:

  • bug 591289: Save chosen download file name and other metadata in Places history.
  • bug 564900: Add folder to Library sidebar specifically for downloads.

Additional patches needed to test the feature:

Work required to release and enable the feature for everyone:

  • bug 675902: Additional interaction with downloads in the Library.
  • [To be defined] Some of the bugs listed as blocked by bug 726444.

Follow-ups

This section lists non-blocking, suggested follow-ups that need more work before filing a proper bug. Often a search for existing bugs is required before filing a separate bug.

Description References
Cu.import failures don't show up in the Error Console, or the test logs. Bug 564934, comment 224
No feedback when the "open download page" link is clicked and the target page is not available. Bug 564934, comment 191
Allow asynchronous termination functions in the testing framework. Bug 564934, comment 259
Scroll to @@ +47,5 @@
Move original nsDownloadManagerUI.js to mozapps/downloads. Bug 564934, comment 192
NetUtil.newURI should QueryInterface to nsIFileURL automatically. Bug 564934, comment 286
Move fileExecutableSecurityWarning to a common place in Toolkit.

Stage 5: Release

10. Landing criteria

` {{#set:Feature open issues and risks=` |Feature overview=This is a page I'm using to track the current status of the Panel-based Download Manager feature at a level of detail I'm comfortable working with. This feature is part of the download user experience improvements.

FEEDBACK

If you have questions (or better, answers!) the best way to provide feedback is to add a comment to the relevant bug.

I'll update this page periodically to reflect the current status and make sure that all the relevant items are tracked.

The latest build can be found here:

  • LATEST BUILD
    • Tryserver builds expire after a few days, if the above link does not work, you can try here or ask for a new build on bug 564934.

I've read all bug comments, and updated this page accordingly, up to this point:

It's possible that some of the latest comments are not yet reflected in this page. See below for detailed tracking of individual items.

The current Download Manager user interface is not optimized for several common use cases, and is not yet integrated with the latest Firefox user experience design. Integrating this interface with the latest design is the first step to improve the downloads user experience.

In the new design, an easily accessible panel shows you current state of downloads, your recent downloads, and gives you a good indicator of how far along your download is. Advanced operations like searching, clearing entries, sorting, and everything else related to download history is integrated with the interface for browsing history.

Goals

  • Fit in with the overall goals of download user experience improvements.
  • Remove the need for a separate Download Manager window.
  • Unify download history with browsing history.
  • Support common use cases, but not necessarily all of those supported previously.
  • Improve the user interface code, and use asynchronous database queries.

|Feature users and use cases=* Downloading and running a setup program (Bug 564934, comment 68 and attachment 467459).

We also probably want to consider some, but not all, of the use cases previously suggested for the Download Manager. Note that the current Download Manager does not support all of suggested use cases, while some of them are in the scope of different download user experience improvements. |Feature dependencies=` |Feature requirements=` |Feature non-goals=* Power user fuctionality, like handling many concurrent downloads.

  • File management, except for showing where the target file is located.
  • Improve download performance or general front-end responsiveness.
    • Note that we still don't want to introduce significant regressions.
  • Improve the Download Manager or Places back-end C++ code, or make it asynchronous.
  • Any other improvement already defined as download user experience improvements.
    • For example, streamlining the entire download process.

|Feature functional spec=` |Feature ux design=We'll reach the stated goals by moving the interface for handling current downloads in a panel, anchored to a status indicator in the main browser window, and adding a new Downloads predefined folder to the Library window.

In the following sections, entries are marked with these indicators:

  • [ON TRACK] Not yet implemented.
  • [INPUT] Needs design feedback, or a prototype implementation to understand what to do.
  • [DONE] Has an initial implementation that can be tested.

Downloads indicator

Provides a status overview, visible during normal browsing when there are download notifications.

  • [DONE] Always visible, located on the navigation bar by default.
    • [INPUT] Maybe, only shown when there are download items in the panel, either active or completed.
    • [INPUT] Maybe, also shown after the last download is removed from the panel, giving access to downloads history only.
  • [DONE] When there are no active downloads, shows the classic button icon (downwards arrow).
  • [DONE] When there are active downloads, shows a progress bar and a compact indication of the remaining time, if known.

Provides visual indication of new downloads or completed downloads.

  • [DONE] New downloads are notified with a brief animation near the indicator.
  • [DONE] Finished or failed downloads make the indicator glow until the panel is displayed.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or moved to an invisible toolbar, the usual screen-level notification is shown when all downloads are completed.
    • Note that, even when the indicator is visible, the screen-level notification is still shown in addition to the indicator notification.

Provides the anchor for the panel.

  • [DONE] Located in the navigation bar by default.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or is located in an invisible toolbar, we show it temporarily in the default position or in the tab bar when the panel is opened, until the panel is closed.
  • If we need to show the panel and both the tab bar and the navigation bar are invisible, then:
    • [DONE] For user-initiated requests (like the Downloads menu item), show the panel without the anchor, near the default anchor position.
    • [DONE] For user-initiated requests, if there is no browser window open (like clicking a screen-level notification, or the Downloads menu item on OSX), open a new browser window and show the panel there.
    • [DONE] For background-initiated requests, do nothing.

Downloads panel

The entries in the popup panel are just notifications saying that a download is going on, and that a download has finished.

The panel works as follows:

  • [DONE] The panel should be shown automatically for the first download of the browsing session.
    • [INPUT] Maybe show the panel automatically only for the first few sessions, not for the first download of every session.
  • [DONE] The panel can be fixed-width.
    • Resizeability is not as much of an issue with the downloads panel as it is with the bookmarks panel, because the downloads panel is less of a "management" interface. The full title of a download is shown in a tooltip.
  • [ON TRACK] When there are no download items, the panel's width can be smaller.
  • [DONE] Notifications are sorted by start time, most recent first.
    • It's consistent with notification sorting in other platforms, and the order doesn't change unexpectedly while the panel is open.
    • Another option is to show first the items on which an action is more likely, i.e. completed downloads first, then failed, then running downloads.
  • [DONE] The height of the panel should be limited in order for the panel not to expand to the full screen height.
  • [ON TRACK] The panel should not to expand to the full screen height.
  • [DONE] When there are more items than the panel's height allows, a scrollbar should be visible for accessing all the downloads.

Individual notifications have the following behavior:

  • Notifications should disappear as soon as the user is done with them. We can't know the exact moment, so we use a set of heuristics.
    • [DONE] Completed downloads are removed from the list when the last browser window is closed.
      • Active downloads have no session boundary. When the browser is closed and reopened, they're paused and resumed automatically whenever possible.
      • Completed downloads are not restored if the previous session is restored. They can still be accessed from the Library window.
    • [DONE] Canceling a running download does not make the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Manually removing a download from the list is possible, but not a top-level interaction.
  • There are no actions that make sense on more than one notification at a time.
  • [DONE] The height of each notification does not change when its state changes.

The layout of a notification includes a main area with the download's distinctive details, and an optional action button. In some states of the download, the main area can be clicked. Double-clicking the main area, instead, is not a supported interaction.

A context menu for the item can always be displayed, though it never contains commands already available through a top-level interaction.

  • [DONE] When the main area can be clicked, a link-style mouse cursor is displayed on hover.
  • When the download is ongoing [not paused or finished or canceled]:
    • [DONE] The button cancels the download.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to pause, open containing folder, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download is paused:
    • [DONE] The button cancels the download.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to resume, open containing folder, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download is failed or canceled:
    • [DONE] The button retries the download. Often, the download will resume from where it stopped, if supported by the server.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to remove from list, go to download page, copy download link.
  • When the download has finished:
    • [DONE] Clicking the main area opens the file.
    • [DONE] The button opens the containing folder.
    • [DONE] The context menu has commands to remove from list, go to download page, copy download link.

There are additional items in the context menu that act on all downloads:

    • [DONE] A context menu item is available for removing completed downloads from the list, without closing the last browser window.

Library window

The Library window allows the user to find and open previous downloads.

  • [DONE] Items can be found by source location or original target file name.
    • Note that downloaded entries can be mixed with normal pages in history results, and a normal web page can be downloaded locally.
  • [ON TRACK] You can see the full target path of the download.
  • [INPUT] In all history views, we want to visually mark those entries that are downloads and whose target file exists, unless the entry was also visited as a normal page.
    • [ON TRACK] Double-clicking those entries opens the target file instead of navigating to the source URL.
    • In other words, we open the file in those cases where we expect that double-clicking the history entry would make the download dialog appear.
  • [ON TRACK] In the Downloads view, the size of file, and time should be there too.

|Feature implementation plan=` |Feature security review=` |Feature privacy review=` |Feature localization review=` |Feature accessibility review=` |Feature qa review=` |Feature operations review=` |Feature implementation notes===== Bugs list and patch queue ====

Feature tracking bug for general feedback:

Relevant patches that are available in nightly builds:

  • bug 591289: Save chosen download file name and other metadata in Places history.
  • bug 564900: Add folder to Library sidebar specifically for downloads.

Additional patches needed to test the feature:

Work required to release and enable the feature for everyone:

  • bug 675902: Additional interaction with downloads in the Library.
  • [To be defined] Some of the bugs listed as blocked by bug 726444.

Follow-ups

This section lists non-blocking, suggested follow-ups that need more work before filing a proper bug. Often a search for existing bugs is required before filing a separate bug.

Description References
Cu.import failures don't show up in the Error Console, or the test logs. Bug 564934, comment 224
No feedback when the "open download page" link is clicked and the target page is not available. Bug 564934, comment 191
Allow asynchronous termination functions in the testing framework. Bug 564934, comment 259
Scroll to @@ +47,5 @@
Move original nsDownloadManagerUI.js to mozapps/downloads. Bug 564934, comment 192
NetUtil.newURI should QueryInterface to nsIFileURL automatically. Bug 564934, comment 286
Move fileExecutableSecurityWarning to a common place in Toolkit.

|Feature landing criteria=` }}

Feature details

Priority P2
Rank 4
Theme / Goal Experience
Roadmap Firefox Desktop
Secondary roadmap `
Feature list Desktop
Project `
Engineering team Desktop front-end

{{#set:Feature priority=P2

|Feature rank=4 |Feature theme=Experience |Feature roadmap=Firefox Desktop |Feature secondary roadmap=` |Feature list=Desktop |Feature project=` |Feature engineering team=Desktop front-end }}

Team status notes

  status notes
Products ` `
Engineering ` `
Security sec-review-complete Notes
Privacy ` `
Localization ` `
Accessibility ` `
Quality assurance ` Test Plan
User experience ` `
Product marketing ` `
Operations ` `

{{#set:Feature products status=`

|Feature products notes=` |Feature engineering status=` |Feature engineering notes=` |Feature security status=sec-review-complete |Feature security health=OK |Feature security notes=Notes |Feature privacy status=` |Feature privacy notes=` |Feature localization status=` |Feature localization notes=` |Feature accessibility status=` |Feature accessibility notes=` |Feature qa status=` |Feature qa notes=Test Plan |Feature ux status=` |Feature ux notes=` |Feature product marketing status=` |Feature product marketing notes=` |Feature operations status=` |Feature operations notes=` }}


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