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

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Status

Panel-based Download Manager
Stage Development
Status In progress
Release target Firefox 11
Health OK
Status note `

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

|Feature stage=Development |Feature status=In progress |Feature version=Firefox 11 |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.

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] 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.

Provides the anchor for the panel.

  • [DONE] Located in the tab bar by default, which by default is always visible, except in Panorama mode.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or moved to an invisible toolbar, we show it temporarily in the default tab bar position or in the navigation 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.
  • [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.

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.
    • [INPUT] Opening the target file or folder makes the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Canceling a running download makes the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Completed downloads are removed from the list when the session ends, but are restored when the session is restored.
      • Active downloads have no session boundary. When the browser is closed and reopened, they're paused and resumed automatically whenever possible.
    • [DONE] Manually removing a download from the list is possible, but not a top-level interaction.
      • [INPUT] Understand if we might want a top-level remove button for completed downloads, that would be the same button that cancels running downloads.
  • There are no actions that make sense on more than one notification at a time.

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.
    • [INPUT] Clicking the main area might indicate to open the download when it's finished, however this could be surprising.
    • [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 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.

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

Patches on the following bugs are required, in order, to complete the feature:

Bug number Description Status
bug 591289 Save chosen download file name and other metadata in Places history. Completed
bug 564900 Add folder to Library sidebar specifically for downloads. Completed
bug 669905 Searching in the new Downloads folder should limit the search to downloads. Completed
bug 564934 Implement new Download Manager UI for browser. Active
bug 663772 Implement new Download Manager status indicator for browser. Active
bug 675902 Additional interaction with downloads in the Library. On hold

Open tasks and questions

Description References Difficult? Blocking? People
Theming and XBL review. Bug 564934, comment 280 No Yes r=Frank?,Dão?
Port the relevant automated regression tests from the Download Manager. Yes Yes d=Paolo, r=Marco
Sometimes clicking certain areas of the indicator does not work, for example when it is placed in the title bar of the window. Bug 564934, comment 290 No Yes r=?
The panel's arrow should be able to point near the screen edge and move without the panel itself also moving. Bug 564934, comment 347 Yes Yes ui=?,d=?,r=?
The preference "Show the Downloads windows when downloading a file" should be removed from the user interface, and should have no effect on the new panel. No Yes ui=?,d=?,r=?
Define the behavior when the target file is removed from disk, and understand at which point we should detect the condition. Maybe Yes ui=?
Define whether download items should keep the same height when they change state. No No ui=?
Accessibility review Yes Yes r=?
Where to put the manual testing procedures, for example those for toolbar migration? Bug 564934, comment 85 No No
Understand if the two makefiles in the patch can be checked in and retain public domain status Bug 564934, comment 272 No No Gerv


Other feedback received

  • UX Group Etherpad with Known Issues
  • The indicator jumps from 1 minute to 30 seconds left, by design, though this can be confusing (Bug 564934, comment 315 and comment 317).
  • "Search" icon on completed items doesn't convey the idea of "Open containing folder" (comment 348).
  • No X button to delete an entry from the panel (comment 348).
  • Indicator does not appear immediately on startup (comment 348).
  • Indicator has no hover effect like other buttons in Tab bar (comment 348).

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.

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] 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.

Provides the anchor for the panel.

  • [DONE] Located in the tab bar by default, which by default is always visible, except in Panorama mode.
  • [DONE] If the indicator is removed from the toolbars, or moved to an invisible toolbar, we show it temporarily in the default tab bar position or in the navigation 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.
  • [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.

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.
    • [INPUT] Opening the target file or folder makes the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Canceling a running download makes the notification disappear.
    • [DONE] Completed downloads are removed from the list when the session ends, but are restored when the session is restored.
      • Active downloads have no session boundary. When the browser is closed and reopened, they're paused and resumed automatically whenever possible.
    • [DONE] Manually removing a download from the list is possible, but not a top-level interaction.
      • [INPUT] Understand if we might want a top-level remove button for completed downloads, that would be the same button that cancels running downloads.
  • There are no actions that make sense on more than one notification at a time.

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.
    • [INPUT] Clicking the main area might indicate to open the download when it's finished, however this could be surprising.
    • [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 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.

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 ==== Patches on the following bugs are required, in order, to complete the feature:

Bug number Description Status
bug 591289 Save chosen download file name and other metadata in Places history. Completed
bug 564900 Add folder to Library sidebar specifically for downloads. Completed
bug 669905 Searching in the new Downloads folder should limit the search to downloads. Completed
bug 564934 Implement new Download Manager UI for browser. Active
bug 663772 Implement new Download Manager status indicator for browser. Active
bug 675902 Additional interaction with downloads in the Library. On hold

Open tasks and questions

Description References Difficult? Blocking? People
Theming and XBL review. Bug 564934, comment 280 No Yes r=Frank?,Dão?
Port the relevant automated regression tests from the Download Manager. Yes Yes d=Paolo, r=Marco
Sometimes clicking certain areas of the indicator does not work, for example when it is placed in the title bar of the window. Bug 564934, comment 290 No Yes r=?
The panel's arrow should be able to point near the screen edge and move without the panel itself also moving. Bug 564934, comment 347 Yes Yes ui=?,d=?,r=?
The preference "Show the Downloads windows when downloading a file" should be removed from the user interface, and should have no effect on the new panel. No Yes ui=?,d=?,r=?
Define the behavior when the target file is removed from disk, and understand at which point we should detect the condition. Maybe Yes ui=?
Define whether download items should keep the same height when they change state. No No ui=?
Accessibility review Yes Yes r=?
Where to put the manual testing procedures, for example those for toolbar migration? Bug 564934, comment 85 No No
Understand if the two makefiles in the patch can be checked in and retain public domain status Bug 564934, comment 272 No No Gerv


Other feedback received

  • UX Group Etherpad with Known Issues
  • The indicator jumps from 1 minute to 30 seconds left, by design, though this can be confusing (Bug 564934, comment 315 and comment 317).
  • "Search" icon on completed items doesn't convey the idea of "Open containing folder" (comment 348).
  • No X button to delete an entry from the panel (comment 348).
  • Indicator does not appear immediately on startup (comment 348).
  • Indicator has no hover effect like other buttons in Tab bar (comment 348).

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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