Under OS X Lion, when downloading a file with Safari, is there a way to keep the downloads window open? After clicking on the "Show downloads" icon, a dialog-like window appears.
Unfortunately switching tabs or clicking in a text area makes the downloads window disappear. Is there a way to keep the downloads window open just like in OS X 10.6 running Safari 5?
One minor workaround is to have the Downloads folder in your Dock, set to Stack. That way, at the very least, you can see the status of the most recent download without needing to open/manage a separate window by just glancing at the Dock. It's not the same obviously, but it's something.
You can open a new Safari window, show the downloads window in that window, then return to your original window. The downloads window in the 2nd window will remain open.
There is no way to keep the popover window open, it will close whenever you navigate away as you have found.
If you are wanting to see the window purely to monitor the progress of the download perhaps to see when it has completed, you can create a saved search folder to do a similar thing which may help. Navigate to the download folder in Finder, and search for ",download", which is the extension given to files that are currently downloading. Save the search, call it "currently downloading" or something and add it to your side bar. Now, so long as you have this window open somewhere, you can view the progress of downloads, and if you use icon view the progress per download is displayed in the icon itself.
Of course, this does not retain a list of downloaded files after they finish which you need to clear every so often like the popover window, or provide download speed/time indications, but it may be a suitable workaround spending on your reasons for keeping it in view.
