Simple mass downloader EN

This is a very light and unobtrusive Firefox add-on (no annoying sounds or animations; only minimal notifications).

MAIN FEATURES:

• The links may be extracted from multiple open tabs, clipboard, or from selected text on web pages.
• Advanced filtering / mass renaming capabilities using various name masks.
• For images there is a special thumbnails view where items may be ordered by the size descending order or filtered by width/height.
• User-defined Automatic Folders where downloads can be automatically directed based on custom rules.
• User-defined Favorite Folders, easily accessible when the user writes a custom download directory.
• Flexible download management, the user can:
  a) pause, resume, open downloaded files etc. (usual features)
  b) set server limits

WARNINGS

• The extension is still in early development, so bug reports or suggestions are welcomed.
• Development is mainly done in Windows, with limited testing in Linux (latest Ubuntu). Unfortunately, I have no way to test the extension on MacOS!
• This extension is a generalist file downloader: for some very specific types it may be better to use other, more specialized extensions (video downloaders, for example).
• The extension doesn't work in private browsing mode.
• The user defined folders are only relative to default browser's download directory; this is a general web extensions security limitation.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Question 1. How to use this extension?

Answer Say for example you have opened a web page with many pdf resources. The most basic workflow it to open the extension popup (via the browser toolbar icon) and click there the Load page links button. This usually fills the resources list with all sort of links, not only the desired pdfs. So the next step is to filter this list, such that only desired pdfs stays here. Write pdf in the extensions text field. Now only pdf type resources show in the list. If the list is still too large (you want only smaller subset) you may continue the filtering process indicating some relevant terms in the next text filter field. Finally, you check desired items individually or all at once and start immediate downloading using the corresponding button (on right bottom corner).
The downloading items are now visible in the downloads tab of the popup; you can manage this list in the usual manner (pause, resume, open or remove individual items etc)

Question 2. How about other alternative workflows?

Answer The general idea of the extension is to collect links to the resources list (with optional filtering) and finally to add checked items to the download queue. The collecting stage has many variations:

• using the web page context-menu: you can right-click individual links from the web page or a larger selected text region
• using the special tabs dialog; here you can collect links from active tab| all tabs| right tabs|left tabs and even decide if the collected links must be immediately downloaded or if the associated tabs must be finally closed.
• add links from the clipboard text using a dedicated menu (note that this clipboard text must have every url on a separate line)

Question 3. The resource list has too many links and I find it difficult to recognize the wanted ones!

Answer By default, the resource list displays the estimated filenames of the collected links. These names are usually different from those displayed on the web page. There are many possible strategies here:

• If the desired items are images, it may be better to use the thumbnails view (there is a special toggle button for this). Here the images can be sorted by descending order or filtered by width/height.
• If you know the file extensions of the desired items, you can use this info for the extensions filter box.
• Sometimes it may be better to select a text zone on the web page (including relevant links) and use the context menu to extract only links from this selected text range.
• More generally, it's important to know that every item has some textual info associated to it. This info comes from the web attributes of that item, more precisely
  • the url (the link address) visible on the status bar when you hover the link (on the web page)
  • the filename, usually included in the url
  • the link text (as you see on the web page)
  • the title text from the tooltip you see when hovering the link (on the web page)
  • the alt text (alternative text, usually associated with images)
    You can use all this available info to identify some specific words/terms associated with your desired items. Next, you must input this terms in the text filter box using an easy syntax, for example, url:word_1 text: word_2 title:word_3. Or simpler, all: word if you are not sure where the word comes from.
• Every item in the resource list can be right-clicked and this will reveal an informative popup will all info known for that item.

Question 4. How to set a custom download directory?

Answer On the resource list tab, there is a directory input field. Here the user can set a download directory. A new folder is written in the form aaa/bbb/.../zzz. For example Docs or Docs/Math/Algebra. Please note that every such directory is defined only relative to the default download directory (this is a web extensions security limitation), so you can define only subdirectories of this main directory. Another thing you can do is to use the general browser settings to change the location of this default download directory.

Also, the user can prepare a custom favorite folde…