Dev channel update to 89.0.723.0 is live

Nothing on the new Download UI issues.

Disability and medication side-effect brain fog means I'm not always as clear as I could be, and I think I didn't express myself well last week, so I'll have another go.

There are quite a few Edge (and Google Chrome) users who really dislike the native Edge (and Google Chrome) download bar/shelf at the bottom of the screen. They broadly fall into two groups,

Group One (which includes me) like having a download bar/shelf at the bottom but really hate the native one for one or more reasons. That it - or a mouseover over a download in it - doesn't show the speed or the file location it's saving in, or that the bar/shelf is too tall and takes up too much space in the tab, or a bunch of other specific features of the default bar/shelf.

Group Two are people who are viscerally offended by any download bar/shelf, and instead want a button in the toolbar that opens a dropdown panel (like the favourite or history ones) with the current and last few downloads in it that can be interacted with in the panel while leaving their current tab on screen underneath.

Up to now, all such people were catered for in Edge, and Google Chrome, and even Firefox, by a plethora of 'download manager' extensions in the Edge, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox extensions stores. There are extensions that disable the native download bar/shelf and provide custom download bars/shelves that are different sizes, provide different info on running downloads, with some also providing more on mouseover, etc. There are extensions that disable the native download bar/shelf and instead provide a toolbar button with a dropdown panel of running downloads that can be popped open, then closed without changing tab to keep an eye on things while doing something in another tab. The one I have used for a long time in Firefox, and there's also a Google Chrome version which I have installed in both Chrome and Edge, has loads of options: download shelf or not, toolbar button too, download bar has config options for size, multi rows, what info is displayed on bar or in popup on mouseover, colours of everything etc, etc. Basically pretty much anyone can configure it for the download UI they want, whatever that is.

BUT

ALL of these extensions start by DISABLING THE DOWNLOAD BAR/SHELF so they can then replace it with the custom bar/shelf or toolbar dropdown.

AND YOU HAVE COMPLETELY WRECKED THE USABILITY OF EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IN EDGE.

In Edge as it was, as still in Google Chrome, and in Firefox, when one clicks for a download, a download dialogue opens (under the cursor/pointer, which is handy as one doesn't have to scroll somewhere at the bottom). In the dialogue is the choice of open or save/save as (and in Firefox there's an option to set the rest as default BY FILETYPE, so e.g. it will remember to open pdfs in the browser but ask for a save-as location for zips, etc). If one of the download manager extensions is present, the native download bar/shelf is disabled, and the extension provided download bar/shelf and/or toolbar dropdown does its thing.

In Edge as NOW, you have put the open/save/save-as ON THE NATIVE DOWNLOAD BAR/SHELF. Which is DISABLED by ALL of theses extensions. So the user gets NO OPEN/SAVE/SAVE-AS IN THE UI. Did NOBODY, not one, in the Edge team know that there are users who like different bars or toolbar dropdowns and therefore have the native dropdown bar/shelf disabled by extensions so you were removing a vital part of the download UI?

As it stands, to use these extensions for different dropdown bars/shelves or toolbar dropdowns, as well as clicking for the download, we now have to additionally open edge://downloads/all and go to it to get the open/save/save-as for each download. Which is bad enough for just one, but if downloading a dozen zip files, or twenty pictures, having to change tabs to edge://downloads/all then back again for every single download is just ... it's just "I'm not using this expletive, expletive, expletive-upped browser, I'm going back to Firefox or Google Chrome" is what it is.

In moving the open/save/save-as to the native download shelf you have WRECKED the usability for everyone who does much downloading and knows the interface they need for that downloading, and will put many people off from moving from Chrome or Firefox. And frankly the number of different download manager extensions of this type in the Chrome, Edge and Firefox stores should tell you that there's a lot of users who have very specific, different wants for their downloading UI. Until you made this dumb, not researched or thought through change, they were all catered for in their assorted wants and needs by the extensive ecosystem of extensions of this type. Now you have basically screwed that entire ecosystem and all those users.

My download manager extension of choice in Firefox for many years is also one of the (few) Mozilla officially recommended extensions, and has the most users of any extensions of that type with Firefox. And there is a version (same author) for Google Chrome with all the same features. Which works in Edge. And I can save the settings (it's very customisable with options for virtually aspect of a download bar and/or toolbar dropdown) from the Firefox instance and load them into the Google Chrome and Edge instances. Which meant that in Edge, with the extension disabling the native download shelf and producing the exact, more expansive UI I've been used to for many years in Firefox and the occasional foray with Chrome and the Chrome version of the extension, I was very happy with my download experience in Edge - that was one aspect I didn't have a problem with and didn't get involved in discussions about little things about the native download shelf. I just never imagined you'd go and do something that broke an entire expansive ecosystem of extensions that provided a huge range of choice for Edge users.

If it stays like this, there are a whole bunch of Firefox and Chrome users who, if they try Edge, will give up in disgust and go back whence they came when they find it's stuck with a to-them inadequate native download UI, but one implemented in a way that completely borks the download manager extensions they use and which would otherwise be usable in Edge if you'd only not put the open/save/save-as on the download bar/shelf.

GET THE OPEN/SAVE/SAVE-AS OFF THE DOWNLOAD BAR/SHELF so download manager extensions are usable again as disabling the native download is the FIRST step for any extension providing an alternate UI. Give users back the large choice they have with the extensions usable.

I will be making no use of Edge now other than checking each release to see if you have made a change so the extensions are usable again, which means GET THE OPEN/SAVE/SAVE-AS OFF THE DOWNLOAD BAR/SHELF.

P.S.

1 If I did want to use the native downloader UI (which I don't) I would find it highly annoying that if I pressed the show all downloads button at the right end of the bar so I switched to a view of the edge://downloads tab to see how things are going with the extra info there, if I then switch back to the first tab the shelf has been closed with no way to open it again I can find.

2 You should show the file path of the saved file on the downloads page. I shouldn't have to actually open the folder to find out which it was if I've forgotten.

3 Two features of Firefox downloading I'd be loath to give up even if everything else in Edge was OK: (i) there's an option in the save dialog to set, and in the Options pages a UI to change, what should happen with links to files by MIME-type - always open in browser or different app, always save to download folder, always save-as, always ask - so e.g. in my Firefox PDFs always open in the browser without any dialogues after clicking on the link, whereas EXEs and mp4s always open a save as dialogue; and on top of that Firefox also remembers the last saved to directory by filetype, so e.g. while mine always opens a save-as dialogue if I click a link to an EXE and an mp4, if it's an EXE the save-as dialogue opens starting in my downloaded programs folder on my D drive, but if it's an mp4 the save as dialogue opens in whichever sub-sub-sub directory of my E drive I last saved an mp4 to. Edge really needs to implement these features if you want to convert a lot of Firefox users to Edge (including me). People used to these features are really not going to want to move to a browser where every save dialogue opens to just the one specified folder on one drive.