Re: Determinate NSProgressIndicator without animation?
Re: Determinate NSProgressIndicator without animation?
- Subject: Re: Determinate NSProgressIndicator without animation?
- From: Lloyd Sargent <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 19:07:29 -0500
On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 06:48 PM, Jonathan Hendry wrote:
On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 06:27 , Lloyd Sargent wrote:
On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 06:10 PM, Ondra Cada wrote:
Jonathan,
Jonathan Hendry (JH) wrote at Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:03:48 -0500:
JH> I used a non-animated progress indicator in a PDF reader
JH> project. The widget shows where you are in the document.
JH> (I don't think a scrollbar is ideal for this.)
Well, I'm not an expert of GUI, but somewhat I feel that scrollbar was
actually designed _exactly_ for that.
Correct me please if I am wrong, but I feel this is a question of
consistency: the user sees progress indicator, well! He presumes the
application is performing some lenghty computation, and the thing
informs him
how far it is. The user sees scrollbar? Right! He presumes there are
some
data of which just part is shown, and the thing informs him which
part, and
how big it is.
Right or wrong, I have to agree with Ondra. The progress indicator
really is not a good indicator of "where you are in the document".
Why not?
Because that is not its purpose. Never has been. You are now deciding
that the user (who may be using Macs since 1984) now knows less than you
do? There reaction will be "huh, that's weird - somebody screwed up".
And what if accompanied by a label noting page #?
Nope. Still violates (in my mind) consistency of the user interface.
And, as he so eloquently stated, the scrollbar is, in fact, the RIGHT
thing to use.
Unless there are 3 dimensions: same-page X, same-page Y,
page-in-document.
I don't think that is the point. The point is WHAT was the progress
indicator designed for. WHAT was the scrollbar designed for. You can't
decide one day that you will use a hammer instead of a wrench just on
whim (besides, you will get crummy results <grin>).
You can use one scrollbar for two dimensions, but that sacrfices
resolution
and can be somewhat awkward, especially for large documents.
Again, I do not see what your objection to the use of a scrollbar is
other than you don't want to use it.
Otherwise it seems to me you are using a widget in a non-standard way
(which is what gets Windoze users into trouble a lot <grin>).
The lack of animation ought to be a sufficient clue that it's not the
usual widget.
At this point, I really don't notice the animation. So, no, it isn't.
Perhaps if you "assume" the user will read the documentation they might,
but why not just use a scrollbar?
Cheers,
Lloyd
---
Canna Software Development
"This email was created using 100% recycled electrons"