GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 102524
ability to specify download directory
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
it would be nice to be able to specify a download directory. Actually a really cool idea would be to allow a user to specify a download directory by filetype (ie mp3s always go into ~/music, images always go into ~/picutres etc.) but that may be pushing it :) ( I really wish i could just create query folders that just did all this automagically, but well thats a gnome bug :) ) After the fact I noticed that there are gconf keys for this, perhaps we can add a nice ui as well :)
I have something like this working in my tree. Actually it's more general: I want to auto-generate file names for saving web pages, images, downloading and print-to-file. It currently has support for MIME types (inferred from file extensions), various URL components (host, scheme, path, filename, query string) and page title, both from the source (i.e. the main document/linking page) and the linked-to target (i.e. an image, a file to download...). So for example, you could direct all saved content of type "image/*" to ~/images and "*/mpeg" to ~/mpeg (currently no further subsitution implemented).
If that usability discussions about directories would come at a conclusion we could place them in the right way when we can, and ask when we dont know what to do.
I think the standard directories idea is way future, do to the complex internationalization issues. I think for the short term adding a user visible pref (to the general page most likely) to specify "A" download directory would actually be quite useful. I know that i would use that more often than changing the language or appearance prefs. Also this would prevent users from downloading a file and having no clue where it went (this has happened to me in the past when loading ephy from an alternated dir and forgeting that i had done so.) All that said, perhaps defaulting to ~/downloads for the download dir might be a good idea. (~ is nice to, but i imagine some people might complain about ephy dumping files into their home dir)
Where would you put such a pref ?
well imo, the general page. I'm fairly certain that more users would change this than the obscure language prefs...That said, perhaps we should put together a proposal for a general reorganization of the prefs dialog, (the user interface tab is pretty unused for example).
>That said, perhaps we >should put together a proposal for a general reorganization of the >prefs dialog, (the user interface tab is pretty unused for example) Yeah, that's sort of necessary probably. Related to this ... mpt just showed me safari security dialogs. These are more or less the prefs I meant to add at some point. But maybe we can cut even more ;) http://www.codepoetry.net/archives/Safari-Security.php Tabs are going to be a pain here too pffff. Not sure with what we could group them. Maybe Advanced ;)
>Yeah, that's sort of necessary probably. Bah I was way too diplomatic. Better something like "If you will find a bit of time to work on this I'm going to love you forever and I volounter to make the necessary code changes" :)
yeah once my life slows down a bit (in the next few weeks) I'll get working on a proposal.
I think for 0.7.0 we should just do the changes we talked about in the mailing list. Then we need to get the security page done, but it's easy, we already have hidden prefs. Not sure if we should have popup blocking there until we have an ui for unblocking ...
Ok, so we lack just the downloader pref now. If someone do the glade ui I can make it work. Never liked this sort of enable + entry uis.
Download Folder: [ entry box ] [browse] Where browse opens a file selector.
That way you dont have a way to have the location asked for each download ?
Yeah asking for the download folder on every download is way annoying and i like how epiphany currently does this. But having ui to specify what folder this is nice :)
Dave, I'd try to discuss it on the list
I love seth suggestion. "Download on the desktop by default" (better label ...) Putting on the desktop you can easily reorder as you like better. I dont think a Downloads directory is very nice, you dont care about how you got this files, but you want to reorganize them. Like if you have Docs and Applications folders on the desktop, you can easily move them there. And you avoid to expose evil filesystem ;)
Oh and default on ihmo
its funny you bring this up :) in safari there is an option menu that lets you select some default folders as well as an entry to select a custom folder (don't remember the exact wording). I would like to have the option to choose my own folder since i prefer to save stuff in ~/downloads. But yeah i agree desktop by default is a good idea.
>its funny you bring this up :) Why ?;) Maybe: Desktop Downloads folder Ask every time ? I still prefer the nice checkbox but ;)
Fixed. Hooray.