Re: how to disable an indeterminate progress bar?
Re: how to disable an indeterminate progress bar?
- Subject: Re: how to disable an indeterminate progress bar?
- From: "David W. Halliday" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 18:55:17 -0500
- Organization: Latin AmeriCom, formerly Latino Online
Scott wrote:
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On 6/5/01 2:55 AM, "Nick Emery" <email@hidden> wrote:
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>
> well, the animation is fine while the processing is active. however, in my
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> opinion, the indicator is too eye catching when the process in inactive and
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> the animation is not playing. This is because most of the window is various
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> shaded of grey except for the important controls which are blue. to have the
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> idle progress bar also blue leads you to believe that it is an important
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> control...
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> --nikki
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>
I agree with you that it would be too catching to the eye, but I don't think
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removing it from the screen is a good idea. Hiding things from users
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confuses them. I think your idea of "disabling" the control is best. This
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was done in OS9 a lot (which has a much better UI IMHO).
Generally speaking, progress indicators are /not/ controls and /should/ be
removed from the users sight when there is no need for them: They are
informational items only (this is true whether the progress indicator is popped up
in a dialogue box---as in the case of classic Mac OS' Finder when copying/moving
files---or if it's unobtrusively placed somewhere in the window the user is
interacting with [something that is generally better in a multithreaded,
non-blocking, environment like Mac OS X---since the user should be able to
continue interacting with the window's controls]).
However, in the case where the thread the indicator is showing progress for
(even when indeterminate, as in this case) is stopped or suspended, then the
progress indicator should be stopped and remain visible. In fact, for the case
where the thread in suspended (especially if there is some user action that can
cause the thread to resume) it would be reasonable to have the progress indicator
appear "grayed out" or "disabled".
To have a progress indicator visible, even if "disabled", when there is
nothing to indicate the progress for, I believe, can lead to user confusion
("What's this indicator for?"). However, it /may/ be reasonable to have the empty
well of the indicator (the "zero" progress state) always visible, rather than
simply a blank location. (Again, however, this may beg for explanatory text near
the indicator, which may not be necessary when the indicator only shows up when
the user initiates something that runs in the background---again, like the pop-up
progress indicators of classic Mac OS.)
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...
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Just an idea..
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>
Scott
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...
David email@hidden