Request: Download manager intergration; Mockup provided

[TychoQuad]

I'm unhappy with the way download managers are supported by non-IE browsers, and as far as I can tell, I'm not alone. Projects like http://mozex.mozdev.org/ and http://downloadwith.mozdev.org exist because of this. However, they only solve half the problem. These extensions add an option to use an external download manager from the right-click menu. This will not help at all when a download comes from a redirected page. That's why I'm requesting an extension which adds a "Download with this program" option to the "Opening this.file" dialog box. This coupled with an extension such as http://downloadwith.mozdev.org would allow almost seamless intergration with practically every download manager avaliable. In case you don't know what I mean, I have provided a mockup of my idea.



I believe this is the perfect solution to an ancient issue.

[nexx]

I like

[BenBasson]

It's good, as it uses Firefox's file handling abilities too, letting you specify different types of downloads for different applications, etc. I like it.

[TheOneKEA]

I like this too!

[Paradox52525]

That's actually a stroke of genius Tycho... if you could do this by simply overlaying the download dialog it would be very easy to implement because you wouldn't have to listen for the download itself at all. If the download dialog is not a hardcoded dialog (IE, assuming it is a XUL window/dialog) this could theoretically be done without even needing any code like what DownloadSort does. Maybe I'll take a look at this later (though I don't know if I'll have time today).

[Braese]

this looks perfect ! i hope someone can make an extension like this

[banjobacon!]

These extensions add an option to use an external download manager from the right-click menu. This will not help at all when a download comes from a redirected page.

WinWGet apparently supports redirection (although I don't remember testing that out) and browser plugin support might be added sometime soon. Being that it is an open source project, I imagine a Mozilla plugin would be made.

Check it out here.

Although what you're suggesting is different, as it would work with any download manager.

[Thumper's Evil Twin]

That shouldn't even be happening. All that needs to get done is for Mozilla to redirect (silently) whenever it wants to pop up a download box. It shouldn't need a box like Tycho's because if you have proper download manager integration then you'd never want to be downloading with Firefox anyway.

The trick is passing referrers and cookies which affect the download along as well. Well, one of the tricks.

- Chris

[TychoQuad]

Thanks for your support everyone, Paradox, I can't wait to see what you come up with! BTW, I believe that this window IS an XUL one... not 100%, but pretty sure.

WinWGet apparently supports redirection (although I don't remember testing that out) and browser plugin support might be added sometime soon. Being that it is an open source project, I imagine a Mozilla plugin would be made.

Apparently it doesn't according to the documentation on their website. It only supports clipboard monitoring as intergration for any browser.

That shouldn't even be happening. All that needs to get done is for Mozilla to redirect (silently) whenever it wants to pop up a download box. It shouldn't need a box like Tycho's because if you have proper download manager integration then you'd never want to be downloading with Firefox anyway.

Thumper, I think your misunderstanding somewhere. The above dialog already exists in Firefox, and is already appearing whenever you try to download a file. I just added an entry to a screenshot i took of this dialog. If my idea is implimented, then silently redirecting will be as easy as clicking the "Do this automatically for files like this from now on." checkbox. That would leave the inbuilt download manager only able to be used for "Right-click>Save link to Disk", and as i said, "coupled with an extension such as http://downloadwith.mozdev.org would allow almost seamless intergration"

To address your very first statement: It shouldn't be, but it is. We NEED an extension like this, because no option currently exists in any reliable form in Firefox, or with download managers themselves. Many believe that the download managers should be supporting the browser, but I disagree. Unlike MIME Type issues and non-standard IE code, there is no documentation by anyone on how download managers should be supported. Hell, noone even suspected that people would want to seperate them from the browser! Inbuilt into IE is a mechanisim which allows download managers listen in to all the sites visited and links clicked on within the browser, that's why it's so easy for every download manager to support IE. Mozilla/Firefox has no such mechanisim, and I'm not suggesting anything half as drastic. (or stupid.)

Mozilla and Firefox already know when a download is found. I'm just suggesting we redirect downloads after Firefox has identified them. No click monitoring, and redirected downloads will be sent to the download manager successfully.

Advantages of redirecting downloads at this point:
1> Works with almost every download manager already
2> Download manager doesn't have to be running
3> Choice per download type on download manager
4> Safer, no clipboard or click monitoring nessesary.

[AnonEmoose]

not to take away from your idea Tycho (as i think it's great) but i get your funtionality already (albiet not as pretty or more than one thread) with DownloadWith extension. Below is my configuration

Installed DownloadWith Extension (this provides rightclick intergration to FF)
Installed wget

My Parameters for wget are

Code: Select all

-P "C:\Music\Download\Leech" -x -cN [URL]

-P = Save folder ie "C:\Music\Download\Leech"
-x = follow folder structure from download source
-c = continue of partial downloads
N = activate time stamp checking

[Thumper's Evil Twin]

Thumper, I think your misunderstanding somewhere. The above dialog already exists in Firefox, and is already appearing whenever you try to download a file. I just added an entry to a screenshot i took of this dialog. If my idea is implimented, then silently redirecting will be as easy as clicking the "Do this automatically for files like this from now on." checkbox. That would leave the inbuilt download manager only able to be used for "Right-click>Save link to Disk", and as i said, "coupled with an extension such as http://downloadwith.mozdev.org would allow almost seamless intergration"

Fair enough, but if you have a download manager, then surely you'd want to use it for all your downloads, and thus could just intercept the "save to disk" option. Windows already has the concept of the "default download manager", and that should be used if possible instead of throwing up a list of options.

To address your very first statement: It shouldn't be, but it is. We NEED an extension like this, because no option currently exists in any reliable form in Firefox, or with download managers themselves.

Oh yes, I totally agree with that bit. i just think that the dialogue box is a bit extraneous. Once someone takes the time to figure out how to accurately catch the download link and pass it off, the work is done.

For download manager authors to support Firefox it should just be a case of customising the download XPI and offering it for download on their websites. IE requires registry keys for its integration and they are already supplied with download manager installers.

- Chris

[TychoQuad]

not to take away from your idea Tycho (as i think it's great) but i get your funtionality already (albiet not as pretty or more than one thread) with DownloadWith extension.

Wrong. DownloadWith cannot catch download redirects. You have to be able to right click for DownloadWith to kick in.

[Paradox52525]

Well first off I disagree with you Thumper, I use Getright but I do *not* want to use it for ALL downloads simply because it is slower to pass off a URL and involves more dialogs overall. I generally use or not use my download manager more based on size than filetype (IE, small zip file I just use Firefox, big zip file, I use Getright for the resume features, ect). I think the dialog overlay is a great way to give the user such flexibility.

ALSO for those of you crying about "seemless" integration, this might still be the way to go. I was brainstorming yesterday, and I realized that with some function overlays and an extra attribute or two in the mimetypes.rdf, it should be possible to make the "Do This Automatically..." checkbox remember the download manager settings as well, in which case it WOULD seemlessly pass the URL to the download manager. I'll have to do some research to see if this is practical, butthe potential is definetely there.

[Stefan]

Well first off I disagree with you Thumper, I use Getright but I do *not* want to use it for ALL downloads simply because it is slower to pass off a URL and involves more dialogs overall. I generally use or not use my download manager more based on size than filetype (IE, small zip file I just use Firefox, big zip file, I use Getright for the resume features, ect). I think the dialog overlay is a great way to give the user such flexibility.

I agree, it's a very nice extension. Default behavior however should probably be to do the "start DL manager if 'save to disk'".

[Thumper's Evil Twin]

I'll pass. The important bit is getting the intercept working. Hell, Michael Burford actually posted in the relevent Bugzilla bug, so there's a fair bit of interest in getting this working.

- Chris