Pale Moon forum

Since there are a few divided camps about the way downloads should be displayed, and Pale Moon allows for customization of it, here are instructions on how to set up the download status in the most preferred ways:

Old style (classic) download manager
Setting this big favorite is really simple, through preferences:

1. Go to Options/Tools -> Status Bar options...
2. Click the category "Download"
3. Under "Firefox compatibility features", select "Use classic download manager"
4. Shut down Pale Moon completely (File -> Exit or Pale Moon button -> Exit) and restart it.

Download Panel, with library window
This is the default in Pale Moon 20, and you don't have to do anything specific to get this.

Download Panel, where "show all downloads" opens the list of downloads in a new tab
If you don't like the library window when you click "show all downloads" but would rather have Pale Moon use a new tab with all downloads in it (about:downloads) then you need to make an edit to the way Pale Moon's user interface works. Thankfully this is a rather painless process.
To achieve this, you need to replace one of the user interface script files in Pale Moon, called DownloadsUI.js
Click to download:

1. Download the above file
2. Shut down Pale Moon (File -> Exit or Pale Moon button -> Exit)
3. Go to your installed Pale Moon folder (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon)
4. Go to the "components" subfolder there (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon\components)
5. Replace the DownloadsUI.js file with the one you just downloaded
6. Restart Pale Moon

Download Statusbar
To get the downloads indicator and panel in the status bar, you need to do the following:

1. Right-click a toolbar and select "Customize..."
2. Drag the Download arrow button from your navigation bar to the customization window to remove it from the UI (this will appear as an arrow icon with "downloads" under it)
3. Find the other down arrow with "Download status" under it and drag it down to the status bar (by default left of the progress meter, but anywhere you prefer)
4. Close the customization window
5. Go to Options -> Status bar options... -> Downloads and check "Always show the downloads indicator"

(You can combine this with the classic downloads window to open when you click on the status bar icon, if you prefer, by following the instructions for that outlined above)

I downloaded the script file and placed it in the folder you mentioned, but I'm still getting the downloads opening in the Library instead of a new tab. I did it twice now just to be sure I did it right.

I just verified that the script does work as it should. You may have to force a clearing of the xul cache, in case the script is cached:

1. Close Pale Moon.
2. Start Pale Moon from the command line with "-purgecaches":
   1. Go to Start -> Run... (if present) or use another way to start the CMD command prompt.
   2. Type palemoon -purgecaches and press Enter.
   3. If you get an error that the program is not found, navigate to your installed Pale Moon installation folder in the command prompt (using cd and dir) and repeat step b or enter the full path to the palemoon.exe executable (enclose it in quotes), e.g:
      "C:\Program Files (x86)\Pale Moon\palemoon.exe" -purgecaches
      The quotes around the path and file name are needed if there are spaces in the path.
   4. Once Pale Moon starts, you can either continue using it as-is and verify the behavior has changed, or close it and start it again as you normally do. You can close the command prompt window in either case.

Thanks MC . . . that worked.

Thanks for the info. Is there a way to reset the status bar options to their default state?

back2themoon wrote:Thanks for the info. Is there a way to reset the status bar options to their default state?

No one-click solution, I'm afraid.

You should open about:config and search for all preferences starting with "status4evar", and reset any option displayed in bold typeface (right-click -> reset).