User:P.A./Panel-based Download Manager/Status
This is your friendly feature status page!
If you want to help with testing the Downloads Panel, you're in the right place!
Read this page in detail first, because it tells what you can expect from this experimental feature.
Then feel free to share your ideas with us, with the modalities indicated below.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
The old, separate window for managing downloads has been replaced by a simpler, unobtrusive Downloads Panel integrated in the main browser window.
When you start a download, it appears in the panel, and the progress is shown in the navigation bar. When the file finishes downloading, you are discreetly notified. A single click on the finished download in the panel opens it.
The panel shows only your recent downloads in the current browsing session. Older downloads are accessed through the Library window, in the same way as your browsing history, and with the same search and display capabilities.
The feature is still in development and has several known issues.
More details
The Downloads Panel is based on an original design by Alexander Limi, who is a specialist in user experience design in Mozilla. The design has since been adopted by the Safari web browser for Mac as well.
The design, and the brief description above, show how the feature should work in common cases, but a lot of other use cases and solutions were discussed. The feature page is the place where all the design details are noted, and links to all the other technical details can be found.
You can read more about our design goals in the feature page.
STATUS OVERVIEW
Where to find the feature
We recommend testing from the Nightly channel with a clean user profile.
| Nightly channel | Feature is present with its first design, and is enabled by default. Has known issues. |
| Aurora channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the first design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
| Beta channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the first design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
| Release channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the first design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
| UX channel | Feature is present in its first iteration, and is enabled by default. Has known issues. |
| Nightly channel | Feature is present with its newest design, and is enabled by default. Has known issues. |
| Aurora channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the newest design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
| Beta channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the first design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
| Release channel | Feature is hidden, disabled by default. When enabled, it's the first design. It has known issues and makes some data inaccessible. |
How to enable or disable
To control whether the Downloads Panel is enabled, navigate to about:config and switch the preference named browser.download.useToolkitUI.
The browser should be restarted after switching the preference.
The Library window interface is always enabled and its behavior is not controlled by this preference.
RECENT CHANGES
The panel only displays a limited number of recent downloads
As a temporary notification area, now the panel only displays the more recently started downloads, and it doesn't obtrusively expand over the page content area anymore.
The old Downloads window temporarily replaces the new Library window view
In the final version, the Library window will provide full download management functionality. For the moment, the old Downloads window is displayed to allow management of all the ongoing downloads.
The button that opens the Downloads Panel is always visible in the navigation bar. When there are no recent downloads, the button gives access to the old Downloads window only. The button can be removed or moved to another toolbar manually, since the customization behavior is now the same as other buttons.
Removing the button from the toolbar now disables the panel functionality.
KNOWN ISSUES
The panel won't work with custom themes
This is expected. Theme authors will have to update their themes to include the new stylesheets and icons.
Note: The structure of the theme and required icons will change for sure in future versions of the feature.
Downloads that finished in previous sessions can't be opened
The panel is designed as a temporary notification area for downloads in the current session only. Only in-progress downloads are preserved across browsing sessions.
For downloads made in previous browsing sessions, shown in the Library window, at present you won't be able to open the target file and go to the page from which the download started. The Downloads window won't display downloads from previous sessions anymore.
The data required to perform these commands from the Library window is just hidden, and these commands will be available in future versions. See bug 675902 for details.
Very old items in the Downloads window will be cleaned up automatically
Historical downloads data was collected in the Library window, in addition to the Downloads window, starting from Firefox 11 (released March 13, 2012), and partially in Firefox 8 (released August 11, 2011). This data is separate from the list in the Downloads window.
In case you made downloads before you started using Firefox 11, and you haven't already cleaned them up in the meantime, Firefox will clean up those old downloads for you.
You'll start with an empty Downloads Panel in any case, as the panel only contains temporary notifications for the session. Historical downloads will still be visible in the Library window, when you select "Show All Downloads" from the panel.
The panel should be empty the first time the feature is activated
When the feature is used for the first time, the panel should be empty, except for active downloads. Sometimes you can see all the downloads from the old Downloads window instead. See bug 746756 for details.
HOW TO SUBMIT FEEDBACK
Help with Quality Assurance
If you want to help by running our formal test suites for new features, there is a manual test suite available.
Submit bug and test reports
- Read the feature description and the known issues.
- If you've experienced one of the known issues, you might find more information in the linked bug, if any, and contribute to the existing discussion in Bugzilla.
- If you've found what you think is a new problem, or you have a suggestion, first take a look at the the full list of Downloads Panel bugs to see if it's already been reported.
- If there's a new issue, file a new bug in the Firefox / Downloads Panel component, and if you can, mark it as blocking bug 564934. Note that we will update the bug to block the appropriate tracking bug as we categorize it.
- If none of the above works for you, post a comment in bug 564934. We'll probably ask you to file a separate bug anyway ;-)