pouriap19 wrote: ↑Sat May 09, 2020 3:30 pm
TL;DR: I'm creating an addon that lets you download links with external download managers. It's possible that other FlashGot functionality could also be added to it. But it will take a lot of time and effort to make so I want to know if people want it or not.
Migrating to Firefox Quantum was very difficult for me because I just couldn't live without some of my addons, including FlashGot. So after recently migrating to it I decided to re-create those essential addons that I couldn't live without. I started with FlashGot because it was very handy and ended up with something that was quite satisfying for my needs. (i.e. downloading links with Internet Download Manager).
But I know there are a lot of people out there like me who want FlashGot back, so I decided to go a little bit further and see if I can improve the addon to work with other download managers. I have used
FlashGot.exe from the old FlashGot adddon to communicate with download managers. The result is
Download Grab, an addon that intercepts Firefox's built-in download and lets you choose how you want to download a file. Other FlashGot functionality like downloading all links and gallery making, etc. could possibly be added to the addon in the future.
However this will take a lot of time and effort. So before I spend any more time on this I would like to have some input from you guys to see if it's even worth the try.
- Do you think the addon is even good?
- Do you think a lot of people are going to use it?
- Do you see any major obstacles or any other reasons that I should not invest time and effort in this?
Or any other thought you might have.
About the addon:
- The current version is for demonstration only and
not a production release. There are things that are broken, there are a lot of logs, there is clutter, UI inconsistency etc.
- The user has to install a native client. There's no way around it.
- Because of the way it is currently detecting downloads there's no guarantee that it will intercept 100% of downloads.
- Currently only works on windows.
- Only FlashGot functionality that is currently implemented is downloading with external download manager.
- Flashgot.exe is quite outdated so I'm not sure how many download managers are detected successfully. Internet Download Manager and FlashGet are detected but the new version of Free Download Manager is not. I haven't tested other managers. (This is something that can be fixed and not related to Quantum limitations).
Screenshots:
https://imgur.com/a/sjCI0Vb
The native client:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mpdvovpizd46a ... p.exe?dl=1
It installs a customized version of
https://github.com/andy-portmen/native-client that works only with Download Grab. This application is needed for Download Grab to be able to communicate with download managers installed on the system. This is a requirement of Firefox Quantum.
(If you have the previous version of the native client installed, remove it using
uninstall.bat and install the new one)
The addon file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9gf5zobxu7iyb ... b.xpi?dl=1
It's unsigned so you will need FF developer edition to test it. You should go to 'about:config' and change
xpinstall.signatures.required to
false. This lets you install addons that are not signed by Mozilla.