How do I have a downloaded file "opened" ?

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @astara

@astara Opera doesn't have such feature, you need to manually open the downloaded file.

astara

astara @leocg

@leocg --
If I click on a ".jpg" or a ".wav" file, opera doesn't ask me where to save it -- it just displays the picture or puts up a tiny - player. Opera clearly opens some files, I would gather this is configurable "somewhere". It's this config section I'm looking for (does that make it more clear?).

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @astara

@astara There is no configuration for this. Opera supports handling of jpg and wav, so that's what Opera does when you navigate to those type of files. The only way they would just download when navigating directly to them is if they were on a server that sent a Content-Disposition: attachment header.

Now, if the link to a jpg or file is on a page, you can right-click the link and choose to download the file instead of navigating to it.

As for automatically opening a file after the file is downloaded, that's not supported. You can open the file from within Opera once it's completely downloaded though by double-left-clicking the file in the download popup or by left-clicking the file on the ````opera://downloads``` page.

astara

astara

This feature used to be in Opera
(https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/26795/change-the-actions-for-file-types-in-opera/), but I don't see where those actions are set in the current version.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @astara

@astara Those were Opera Presto features, it's been almost a decade that Opera no longer has it.

astara

astara

Doesn't Opera have the ability to let users install handlers for various file types? Like google phone service allows one to click on a "phone" link -- it talks about registering google voice as a handler for phone type links. For me, I want to have Opera download files of type ".torrent", then turn them over to the local program to handle such file types. Similarly apps such as Aria, can process a download link that tries multiple protocols for download -- if your distro supports it, it will try both http and torrent protocols to download a multi-gig download. Normally browsers have had the ability to launch special handlers for different file types -- looking not just at extensions, but usually the files mime type. Opera used to have the ability to adapt to new media and allow adding actions. Firefox, IE, Edge all have this -- pretty sure chrome does as well -- which should mean opera does unless it has been crippled.

There should be some way to set actions for various file types. I don't see why devs would cripple opera where the feature is in other browsers. Was there a discussion viewable in the forum about why this feature was removed?

astara

astara @leocg

@leocg But why not? It's a useful feature that other browsers have, so why would Opera remove it?

So opera doesn't have "handlers" for different protocols or actions, like "phone"? Is it a feature to advertise "Opera -- the non-configurable and inextensible browser"? Doesn't sound like a benefit, is it supposed to be? Somehow?

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @astara

@astara As said, that's for a different Opera browser. It was discontinued a long time ago and Opera made a new browser from scratch based on Chromium (what Chrome is based on).

Opera relies on Chromium for its handling of protocols and file types. So, in general, whatever Chromium supports, Opera supports.

In Chromium, for protocols (magnet for example), Chromium just passes the link to your system's default handler for the protocol. Opera does the same.

For file types, Chromium just downloads them where you can then open them from the download dialog or in your OS from your downloads folder. Opera is the same way.

Now, in Chromium, after you download a file type, you can click the up arrow for the download in the downloads bar and choose "always open files of this type". Chrome saves this list to your profile. But, it doesn't show the list in the UI. You can goto the URL chrome://settings/downloads and clear the "Open certain file types automatically after downloading" hidden list, or in the downloads bar, you can click on the arrow for an existing download of the type you want and toggle its "always open files of this type" setting. There's no other way to do it, but Chromium at least supports automatically opening in this limited case. As for Opera, it doesn't support this as you've noticed. As to why, it's probably because Opera uses some custom UI for downloads where Opera just hasn't implemented support for the Chromium "always open files of this type" feature. Other Chromium browsers might get this for free just by not using any custom UI. For Edge, it looks like MS has to add support for it themselves in Edge's download UI (right-click a download to see the option).

So, in short, Opera hasn't implemented support for the Chromium "Always open files of this type" feature yet. Sounds like a good suggestion for https://forums.opera.com/category/15/suggestions-and-feature-requests.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @astara

@astara Don't know, probably there isn't enough demand to justify adding it?

Kymberleigh

Kymberleigh

This thread confirms my major hesitation in using Opera as my primary browser (at present, I only use it for sites that don't want to "play nice" with Firefox), which is unfortunate because the update of the latter on Thursday night has caused a major problem for me ... notably, all sites are taking at least twice as long to load. I was considering using Opera for everything because I am not experiencing the same slowdown.

But one of the things that Firefox does is provide better download management. I need to have it configurable to ask before downloading, to give me "open instead of save" options for certain file types (and what I want those opened with) in the "ask" box, and not default to everything going to a single folder. Firefox even manages to remember where the last download from a particular site was saved and offer that as the destination folder, including the ability to change same.

Until Opera has that kind of functionality, its usefulness is limited to me. So I would like to add my vote to those who believe this should be part of Opera.

(And please, no comments about "the Chromium engine". I know this, consider that to be a failing as well and the reason why I do not use browsers built on that engine. If Opera's developers are as talented as I am led to believe, they can find a way to do this.)