Firebird's got a new download manager! Help testing!

Vesh · Post by **Vesh** » December 11th, 2003, 5:48 pm

*sigh* I'm disappointed in the Firebird peeps for putting the popup in at all. It's so un-FBish. Popups, fancyschamcy download windows and all that other garbage is why I got away from other browsers. I'd love a way to restore the old, simple functionality (plain-jane download windows & no popup alert). Even better would be to distill them to extensions and not have them in the builds at all.

I'm currently using a damned old build (whatever I had on the HD) and am just too busy to keep checking out the nightlies myself (I'm only posting now because I'm waiting on a render). Maybe some kind soul can give me a holler when/if the new features get excised, or optioned, please?

darthmdh · Post by **darthmdh** » December 11th, 2003, 8:27 pm

Has anyone given a thought to the fact that perhaps that popup was destined to have some functionality relating to the new download manager, but the developers copped so much flak about the new download manager that they just can't be bothered working on it right now? who can blame them, really.

Chalk up another win to the vocal minority who want to see firebird fail

Vesh · Post by **Vesh** » December 11th, 2003, 11:16 pm

Um, wow. That's one hell of a fingerpointing overgeneralization there. I happen to love Firebird and want it to succeed, the new download features simply are inefficient and annoying for me and the popup gets in my way when I'm working.

Dirk · Post by **Dirk** » December 12th, 2003, 3:46 am

How about we get an option to go back to the old system and for people who actually use the new thing. An option to run the file from the manager and just not show where it is...

-dp-

johngoodin · Post by **johngoodin** » December 12th, 2003, 8:45 am

The biggest boom to the download manager is if one could add a options button to scan downloads automatically for viruses, test archive files after downloading, move files automatically to various download folders based on the file type. IE... Zip files to MozillaFirebird\My Downloads\Software Downloads, PDF, DOC, PDF all to MozillaFirebird\My Downloads\Text Downloads, MID, MP3 to MozillaFirebird\My Downloads\Music Downloads.

In other words ask the folks that write plugin's to create some for the download manager. The first I would like to see is a on the fly prompt to let FB Download manager handle the download or pass it off to a external manager such as Getright, ReGet, Download Accelartor Plus, or Mass Download.

Don't really know how I did it but Mass Downloader is handling all my FB downloads. And even the ones burried behind CGI scripts that often has you downloading a html file rather than the download you requested... Super....

johnleemk · Post by **johnleemk** » December 12th, 2003, 10:02 am

How about we get an option to go back to the old system and for people who actually use the new thing. An option to run the file from the manager and just not show where it is...

Ben has already clearly stated that the only way to go back to the old system will be to install an extension. Period. I don't think there's one yet. In Windows, you can run the file from the manager by double-clicking the entry in the manager.

If you preferred the download sidebar of old, there's a hack in the Extensions forum.

Vesh · Post by **Vesh** » December 12th, 2003, 10:16 am

johnleemk wrote:Ben has already clearly stated that the only way to go back to the old system will be to install an extension. Period.

If that's true, then today marks my views of Firebird being something special developed by people that "get it" ending. =/

Dirk · Post by **Dirk** » December 12th, 2003, 9:16 pm

Yes they dont get it. And what sidebar? Never used that before. Anyway someone hurry and make an extension. Cause this manager is the biggest peice of crap ever. :/

-dp-

nilson · Post by **nilson** » December 12th, 2003, 9:19 pm

Vesh, have you tried it? You said you were using an old build. I really don't like it being a ppopup; if it were on the sidebar, it would be perfect for me (and there does need to be an option for the old way too!)

nilson · Post by **nilson** » December 12th, 2003, 9:20 pm

Dirk wrote: Anyway someone hurry and make an extension.

Make that a patch

scratch · Post by **scratch** » December 12th, 2003, 11:23 pm

a patch will not be checked in. ben has made his decision.

Vesh · Post by **Vesh** » December 13th, 2003, 12:16 am

nilson wrote:Vesh, have you tried it? You said you were using an old build. I really don't like it being a ppopup; if it were on the sidebar, it would be perfect for me (and there does need to be an option for the old way too!)

Yup, sure have. I'm not the type to diss something I've not checked out firsthand (well, except for the new Battlestar Galactica, but that's different). =P I went back to this old build from the nightly with the new download window and popup. I shouldda made that more clear, there.

See, I've always viewed Firebird as this beautifully expandable barebones browser. Simple, solid, standard functionality out of the box with the ability to fancy-it-up with as many extensions you wanna throw at it - or for people like me who like simplest-thing-that-could-possibly-work type stuff, not. These new download features go against that and more personally, I dont really like them so it's two strikes against it already.

Maybe, maybe I would hate it less if it were a sidebar and the alert popup didn't happen. But since that isn't how the current implementation behaves, I'm back on this build for the time being.

Scribbler · Post by **Scribbler** » December 13th, 2003, 2:51 am

<snip> tinkering with preferences answered my questions and concerns...

jhaygood86 · Post by **jhaygood86** » December 13th, 2003, 11:57 am

This new download manager... Microsoft already beat Open Source to it with MSN 9.0. (In fact, MSN 8.0 had this to, released October 25, 2002). But, I haven't did any side by side tests with it, as I am still using:

XDN Navigator wrote:Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6a) Gecko/20031102 Firebird/0.7+ (XDNComm/1.1.1103)

alcatraz52 · Post by **alcatraz52** » December 13th, 2003, 12:30 pm

Yeah its kinna odd because I think this is more suited to an extension..but w.e, it still looks pretty

Firebird's got a new download manager! Help testing!

New download stuff == unwanted features.