Some suggestions to improve the UX

[redactedscribe]

Some suggestions for either moving or linking some options from the Options window to other areas of the UI to make them more immediate to access and change on-the-fly.

Candidates:

• "Set date and time of file from server response"
  • With a toolbar button, its state would be evident at all times (highlighted or not), linked to the global state.
  • With a "Add URL(s)" window option it could be customised on a per-download basis.
  • I don't often see the "Add URL(s)" pop-up window as I don't start downloads with HTTP Downloader for the most part, but it makes sense to be included there which some may appreciate. A main toolbar button would be something I'd make use of as I'd enable it for a set of downloads and turn it off once done.
• "Always on top"
  • Either as a menu entry: suffix/enclose the program name with an asterisk in the title bar, for example, so the state is evident.
  • Or a toolbar button: state is self-evident.
• "Scroll to last item when adding URL(s)"
  • Probably most suitable as a menu entry.
  • Currently, this option doesn't cover the use case where if the user prefers the download list, a.k.a. the history, to be descending (top is newest) as this option will always just scroll to the bottom. I argue it'd be more useful if where the program would scroll to were linked to the currently sorted column and it's order. I.e. when enabled, in my case it'd scroll to the top due to the list sorted by date descending from newest to oldest.
  • Why change anything? This may be something you want enabled most of the time, but you may also want to reference old items in the list as you download new ones, which would be a lot of scrolling down again for each new add. The feature needn't be tucked away in the Options.
• "System shutdown action when all downloads finish"
  • Either as a toolbar element:
    • Drop-down: View and set the value directly.
    • Button: Modify the setting to be a toggle, and when enabled, use the shutdown action set in the Options.
  • Or a menu entry:
    • Append the current shutdown action if set to anything but "None" to the title bar, for example: "When downloads complete: \<action>".
• Others that could be closer to the surface? ...

Issues:

• Buttons require icons. If that's a reason to hinder implementing as a button, I could create them in vector format if you're interested (and the pre-existing ones too). Would take me a bit of time but the result should be decent.

New options:

• Default action for double-clicking a file in the file list: a user could set this to trigger "Open File", or "Open Directory", or perhaps even "Update Download". Currently, double-clicking a downloaded item doesn't do anything.
  • What happens if item is downloading but not downloaded for some of these suggested options?
• Clicking the notification that appears after a download completes could have similar configurable options, e.g. shows the HTTP Downloader window. Currently clicking it just dismisses the notification.

[erickutcher]

I want to keep these options in the Options window rather than duplicate them elsewhere. Most people are going to have them set once, if they set them at all, and keep it that way. If they should need to be changed, then it's not that big of a deal to keep the Options window open and toggle things every so often.

In the Appearance options there's a setting to "Sort added and updating items". If you enable that and have the Date and Time Added column sorted to descending, then it'll keep the newest added items at the top of the item list. As long as the list is scrolled to the top, then it'll always focus on the last added item.

I forgot that I implemented this, but if you hold Ctrl + Shift and double click on an item entry, then it'll open its directory. I just now made it so that if you double click on an item entry, it'll open its Update Download window.

I've also made it so that the notification shows the main window when it's clicked. It'll only work when the notification is visible on the desktop. It won't show the window if it's clicked in the notification panel thing that Windows 10 has.

[redactedscribe]

I want to keep these options in the Options window rather than duplicate them elsewhere. Most people are going to have them set once, if they set them at all, and keep it that way. If they should need to be changed, then it's not that big of a deal to keep the Options window open and toggle things every so often.

As mentioned, you wouldn't necessarily have to duplicate them, they could be moved instead, and in my opinion, to a place where they'd be more prone to get used in more than a set-and-forget manner. But of course, if you don't wish to make any changes, that's fine.

In the Appearance options there's a setting to "Sort added and updating items". If you enable that and have the Date and Time Added column sorted to descending, then it'll keep the newest added items at the top of the item list. As long as the list is scrolled to the top, then it'll always focus on the last added item.

I'm guessing the scroll to bottom option only really makes sense if the sort added items option isn't in use. If I've understood that correctly, it seems the scroll option should be greyed-out (disabled) if sorting added items is enabled, else you could end up enabling both which wouldn't make sense -- unless you've just so happened to sort date and time ascendantly because both options will align in that case. Sorting by any other column with both these options enabled likely makes even less sense.

I forgot that I implemented this, but if you hold Ctrl + Shift and double click on an item entry, then it'll open its directory. I just now made it so that if you double click on an item entry, it'll open its Update Download window.

As much as I appreciate that you've thought of an alternate way to open the location of a file (and soon to be able to update the download), from my perspective, it'd be more useful if updating the download would only occur on double-click for a file in any state but completed. And in a completed state, what is it that we usually want to do? I'd argue, open the file / browse to its location. So for downloaded items, I'd like to see double-click attempting to do the former, as typically when we double-click a file, I think most would like to view the image, or run the exe, or open the archive, etc. For something as crucial as browsing to a file's location, the final piece of this approach would be to utilise middle-click to run "Open Directory" on an item.

I'm not particularly a fan of having to use modifier keys to do an action which I consider fundamental, and especially one that shouldn't need a two-handed operation to achieve, more obscure features, sure, but opening the file's directory? I again understand if you have your own vision, or if your time is limited and don't wish to make too many changes, but I hope my outlined suggestion provides a sensible alternative, which I strongly believe would change the UX for the better.

I've also made it so that the notification shows the main window when it's clicked. It'll only work when the notification is visible on the desktop. It won't show the window if it's clicked in the notification panel thing that Windows 10 has.

I was hoping for this, thank you. I'm not too fussed about the notification centre not launching the app directly as I think if I wanted to check my completed downloads, I'd be going straight to the app. In the future, maybe it could work from the notification centre as well, but I think it's a small but useful improvement to be able to capitalise on the pop-up as it happens and have HTTP Downloader appear then and there.

In any case, thank you for developing the program, it's be really nice to have decent speeds for downloads initiated via Firefox (Chromium browsers have a hidden flag for parallel downloading, but Firefox doesn't even provide a native method as far as I could tell). HTTP Downloader is a great external, lightweight, open-source solution to this problem 🙂 The others don't tick all those boxes. Some day cross-platform too? One can wish.

[Quidney]

I second the double click for Open directory option. It's the default in a lot of downloaders such as qbittorrent.

I'd also build the app myself with that one little change if I could, But I have no coding experience.