JDownloader suggestions for OS X

Posted on Mon 15 August 2011

I’ve been asked to write down what can be done to improve the look of JDownloader on OS X in its forums, since I’ve criticized that its current integration is pretty bad.

In order to have the most up to date version in terms of OS X integration (read: pseudo-native skin) I’m using the Nightly build for this task.

Addon: Improved Mac OS X Dock

  • This should be renamed “OS X Dock Integration”
  • There should be an option which of the addon’s two features (namely a progress bar for the current download and a badge for downloaded items) you want to use. Just put it under “Settings/Addons/OS X Integration”. Use checkboxes or switches to enable and disable.
  • Fix the dock badge. I have no idea what it is supposed to count but it’s wrong.
    Example: I had 20 packages with 307 links pending, 1 link was downloading, none finished. Still, the badge read “2”.

Addon: Growl Notification

  • The text for the notification “All downloads finished” is misleading and should read “Downloading stopped”, since this is what actually triggers the notification. Try it yourself with hitting the “Stop” button.
  • There needs to be a separate notification “All downloads finished” that really triggers when this condition is reached.
    Example: The last download was successful and there are no more pending items in the queue.

User Interface: Menubar

  • “Settings” is to be renamed to “Preferences”.
  • “Settings” has to sit right below “About JDownloader” in the menubar, but has to be separated by on of those horizontal lines that are used to group items.
  • There ought to be a menu entry “Minimize JDownloader” in a menu with the header “Window”.
  • The “?” menu should be renamed “Help”.
  • All menus (menubar and contextmenus that is!) have to lose their icons. This is contrary to OS X standards. Though I’m no so sure about the list of hosts. Still, there’d be an option to keep the icons in the list of Settings Preferences instead of having them in the menubar.
  • In case you want to keep the items currently listed in “File” (without “Settings”, that is…) it would be beneficial renaming that into “System” or something similar since there are no real file-related tasks in there. One would assume that you’d load a DLC Container under “File” but this is instead done under “Links”, which is confusing.
  • The “?” menu contains an entry “About JDownloader”, which is unnecessary due to it already being in the column that reads “JDownloader” in the menubar.

User Interface: Keyboard

  • “Minimize JDownloader” has to have the hotkey “CMD” + “M”
  • “Addons” currently has “F4” set as its hotkey. OS X HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) state that the F-keys are not to be used for important or even popular tasks within apps. (This being a result of their double-usage for media/brightness/etc. control)
  • “Settings” should have the hotkey “CMD” + “,” assigned, this is a OS X standard and is used across pretty much every app you find.
  • “Support” is mapped to “F1”; see OS X HIG.
  • “About JDownloader” is mapped to “CMD” + “F1”; see OS X HIG. I also suggest its deletion as said above.

User Interface: Tabs

  • Currently tabs are drawn to look like OS X tabs, but they are clearly not due to the fact of them having a “close” button drawn on the “Settings” and “Logs” tab. It’d be the cheapest option to remove the close buttons on those tabs to make them look native. Though this might not be the best idea, since I can already hear people complaining about the “Logs” tab, since I assume this consumes at least some CPU resources which is a fact that is destined to annoy someone. (There’s more behaviour that makes those buttons stick out: They don’t change their font-color on OS X Lion and the font is not aligned with the two left ones; it’s slightly above where it should be.)
  • The tabs also have icons on them which are not appropriate in OS X.

I’m actually quite sure that further improvements can be made and those are not the only things that can be done to improve JDownloader’s look and feel on OS X. Feel free to contact me (English or German) on the JDownloader forum via PM (username: ghostlyrics), to contribute to this thread or mail me.