> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:40:38 +0200, Martin Wehner > <martin wehner gmail com> wrote: >> On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 17:47 +0200, Sebastien Estienne wrote: >> > of course we need the progresse dialog, but we don't need to have it >> > in front of us all the time, that's why a little icon in a tray call >> > allow us to see the current actions in progress by cliking on it (a >> > bit like the progress dialog in firefox) >> >> Yeah, the progress dialog should be minimizable in the first place :) >> I'm suprised nobody brought this up yet. >> An option to minimize the progress into a panel progress applet would be >> sweet too, but I for one rarely have more than one transfer going. >> > As far as i remenber, the mail app in mac os x use something a bit > similar. > And i think that evolution would also benefit from a progress bar that > doesn't ofusc reading the mail. that's really not great to have this > pop up with progress bar (sending/receiving) in from of you when you'd > prefer to be able to read your mails. > > I think that this concept of progress bar not staying in the middle of > the screen should be applyed to all task that don't need the > completion of the progress bar before the user can work again. > > For example you don't need to have recieve all your mail, to start reading > you don't need to have wait for your trash bin emptying until you can > do something else. > > Somehow this kind pop up appearing and staying in the middle of the > screen is a bit against the notion of "multitasking", because most > people wait for his completion before doing something else! >
HIG says about progress windows in [1]: "Otherwise, a progress window should be raised above the application when the application window itself is selected from the window list." and "Resizing.�Progress windows should be resizable if they contain non-static information the user may want to copy (for example, the source URL in a download progress window). Otherwise they should not be resizable." So maybe an enhacement should to be filed for HIG?, It seems HIG dont have that "multitasking" notion and it assumes that if a progress operation is being executing in an application *that operation* is the most important thing happening in that application. While the multitasking view says that there may be *more important* things to do in that application or in other applications in the desktop than just seeing that concrete operation bar increasing... My ideal implementation details are: - Dont show the progress window by default, automatically minimize the progress window to a tray icon that symbolizes the operation and show a popup notification saying the operation has started. In that point you know the operation has started and you can continue working in other desktop apps or performing other tasks in the same app (reading existent mail while checking for new mail) without an extra click to minimize the progress window. - If you are interested in how the operation is being performed, you mouseover the icon tray that simbolize the operation and a popup notification says about percent of operation been performed. - If you are *very* interested in how the operation is being performed, you double-click the icon tray that simbolize the operation and the progress window appears showing progress bar and all info about it (filenames,etc), then when you are done you minimize the progress window to its tray icon. - When operation concludes a popup notification says how operation concluded (success, error, aborted). Then, if operation concluded in success, the icon tray (and so the progress window that represents) disappeared in 5 seconds. Otherwise if operation concluded in error the icon tray stays there until user takes care of it by, 1) click it to bring up the progress window and see possible error messages or 2) ignore the error by right-click it and choose close. I think all this notification stuff should be integrated, as much as possible, in a desktop api to make life easier to app developers and to have a uniform and integrated desktop. [1] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/windows-progress.html PD: Sorry for the cross-posting to usability, I thought it was interesting... -- nautilus-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list
