Provide run / open / save / save as options when downloading files - Discussion

1 (open a file) - yes! Often I just need to print a PDF file, but in Insider Edge I have to download it and stick it on my desktop first. (I don't put temporary files in my downloads folder because I'll lose them.)

2 (rename a file) - Sometimes! The real problem with the downloads folder is how confusing it gets. For example, I have no idea what 

is, but it went into my downloads folder last month. Twice. (If you're wondering, I opened it and it stands for "FOSSwire Unix/Linux Reference".) There is currently no option to "Move and rename" a file directly from the downloads bar. One must either click on Options, then Show in Folder, or else turn on "Ask where to save each file before downloading".

3 (download many things) - Maybe? I don't download multiple files very often. I have done it once in recent memory; I had "Ask where to save each file before downloading" turned on at the time. This made the situation much slower. However, I tried out the "default" in Edge Dev just now, and similarly to the issue with 2, there is no button to "move all to folder" after the files have been downloaded and are visible in the downloads bar.

4 (doing all 3 together) - 99% of the time, I want to "run / open" my files. My advice will probably heavily favor this style. When trying to come up with a solution, the big question I had was "should we rename and move the files as each is downloaded or after all have been downloaded?" If we choose what happens to each file as it is downloaded, we have to "confirm" each download as it happens. With a lot of files, that's a lot of confirmation clicks. Thus, it would be better to save every file to the default folder with one click, but then allow the user to edit the file name/location directly from the Downloads Bar. Thus, each file would have options to "open/run", "move to folder" and "rename" from its options menu in the downloads bar, and on the right side of the bar, the Show all button would be complemented with "move all" and "open all" buttons. If you download a variety of files all at once, you might want to save most of them but also open one or two. An [x] could be placed to the right of each file's Options button, and its tooltip would say "close" to prevent confusion with "deleting" the recently downloaded file.

There are two obvious issues with my proposal:

A: If you move a few files to custom locations, then "move all" files, what happens? Edge can't force-remove a file from the downloads bar immediately after it has been moved by the user; many people would probably want move and then access their files.

B: The term "open" is very problematic when files are automatically downloaded. In Classic Edge, there was a clear choice between opening OR saving a file. In my system, Saving THEN opening sounds like the file will remain in the downloads folder. Synonyms for open, like "view" or "open temporarily", do no better to address this problem.

Considering these problems, my proposal might not be possible at all. I hope it is, or that this post is helpful more generally, at least.

Elliot Kirk