DownThemAll: DownThemAll! 3.0 Beta 2

DownThemAll! 3.0 Beta 2 was released. It is the second preview release of the upcoming new major version 3.0.

Important: Since this Beta version is just a preview version, there might be more bugs than usual, and you should be willing to report any issues you find back to us. We release this Beta version specifically to get feedback from testers early, so that we can fix isues before we release a final version to the masses. If you rely on DownThemAll! in your daily work, you should be extra cautious before upgrading and be prepared to work around problems yourself and/or downgrade DownThemAll! to the stable Release version again yourself.

The file is digitally signed by Nils Maier and has a SHA-1 hash of
1179a3abd026dd424a220ac99928b61a04767d2c.

The Beta version will update itself should new Beta versions or the final Release version arrive. The updates will be served via a TLS secured connection from our own servers. Once the final version becomes available, updates again will arrive only from the mozilla add-ons site and you will no longer receive further Beta versions, just the regular updates.

Compatibility

DownThemAll! 3.0b2 is compatible with

• Firefox
  Most features: 18.0+
  Private browsing support: 20.0+
• Seamonkey
  2.15+ (some features not supported)

Major features and improvements

• Restartless add-on
• New appearance
• Completely modernize the code to support and use the latest mozilla features
• Better platform support
  • Platform-specific theme fixes
  • Per-platform optimized file I/O
  • Improved platform integration
  • First round of HiDPI (Retina) compatibility. Please note that not all icons have been updated yet
• Finer grained per-domain limits
• Queue filters and search functionality
• Various memory usage and load time improvements
• Mostly asynchronous disk I/O to keep the application windows responsive and snappy
• Per-window Private Browsing mode support
• Lightweight-theme support in the manager window (Firefox on Windows Vista/7 only)
• Countless small features, improvements and fixes

Major changes and known issues

• “Legacy” Private Browsing Mode support dropped in favor of Per Window Private Browsing Mode, which will be available from Firefox 20 onwards
• The internal APIs have changed. Third party Add-ons interacting with DownThemAll!, such as FlashGot, might not be (fully) compatible yet.
• Diagnostic Logging consumes a lot more resources now, to support better logs. Unless you’re planning to submit bug reports, please make sure you have Diagnostic Logging disabled.
• The add-on may not update itself properly on file systems with automatic file locking, if the add-on is updated multiple times during a single browser session. This affects Windows users in particular. You should be able to update the add-on after a browser restart. I fixed this issue in the Firefox code, but it won’t be available before Firefox 19.
• Some preferences have had their descriptive texts and/or location in the Preferences window change. This does not mean these preferences have been removed.
• Some features are still brand new, such as HiDPI support and Per-window Private Browsing support. As such these fatures have not been thoroughly tested.
• Beta1 just includes English language. Translations are not available at this point.
• Old Firefox versions, such as Firefox 3.6 and 10 ESR are NOT supported. Forcefully installing the add-on will NOT work, because of missing features in these ancient Firefox versions. Firefox 17 ESR is not supported as well, but DownThemAll! might work with it, with some limitations. However getting DownThemAll! to work in 17 ESR is not supported and as such will not be documented. ESR users should keep using DownThemAll! 2.0.

Changes since last Beta

• Added Firefox button sub-menu
• Fixed: Set Time pref not working
• Fixed: OneClick Selector not properly working
• Fixed: Per-Server limits do not always display in the pref window (but still work)
• Add Paused! action will now ask if it should be remembered
• Refine some user interface texts
• Fixed: Unsteady labels/fields in “Download Information”
• Add more renaming tag variations for referrer URL

Thank you…

…for testing this preview release!

Please, as always, file any bugs with our bug tracker.
And if you like this piece of software then please consider making a donation.

If you like to take a stab at fixing something yourself, we’re accepting pull requests or patches at our bug tracker.

Nils Maier – on behalf of the DownThemAll! project