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[Ayatana] [Fwd: Re: Web-Browsers: Downloading Files]

For some reason my reply never went back to the ayatana list, rather it went only to you. I'm going to blame Evolution for this. Most of my emails problems are it's fault :)
--- Begin Message --- Hi Chris ;)

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 05:17, Chris Wilson <afrowildo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So basically what you're saying is that you'd like to have downloads exhibit the same behaviour between the three browsers that you listed. I can see quite a few problems with that.

>From a practical standpoint this sounds like it would be very difficult to implement as you would have to create a plugin for each browser that would override the default download behaviour and bend to our will. This plugin will have to be then kept upto date, and so as the browser developers move ahead we would have to keep up with them. I think this is more hassle than it's worth for the relatively small gains that would be reaped.

Generally I've found it's never a good idea to try and smother an application's existing functions with your own since there are always others somewhere else in the app that rely on them and things just end up getting broken.

In reality most computer users don't bother using anything other than what comes with their computer (that's why Internet Explorer is still so popular despite the obvious deficiencies).

Given this, I would say that, if this path was even to be pursued, that only a Firefox plugin should be created. There already exists the Ubuntu branding plugin that ships by default, and that could conceivably just just be turned into the general Ubuntu-ification plugin. That's if this course were to be pursued, which I don't think it should be.

With Unity going to be the default interface for Ubuntu in the future, there're going to be a lot of changes in the way we interact with our Ubuntu computers, and it's too early to say what those changes are going to entail. Mark Shuttlework has previously stated that he believes the files-and-folders method of computing is broken, which leads me to assume that he and a few others are working on an alternative. The process of downloading files from the web will undoubtedly be one of the things that changes, and I don't think it's a good idea to try and come up with a new UX for downloading until Unity has been in place for a release or two.

Thanks a lot for sharing your opinion on this, also in such detail!
If you wouldn't mind, it would be kind if you could include a quote on "[...]he believes the files-and-folders method of computing is broken[...]", i think you're right but i don't quite remember where that came from:
Please repost to list, if you may, and.. its "Mark Shuttleworth" please ;)

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