Re: Word-a-Day: progress bar, progress indicator

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 20:17 +0200, Matteo Settenvini wrote:
> Il giorno ven, 25/04/2008 alle 12.23 -0500, Shaun McCance ha scritto:
> 
> > I'd like to solicit ideas on two related types of controls.
> > 
> > First, what about pie-filling progress indicators?  They
> > clearly show actual progress, but they aren't bars.  Do
> > we have a word for these things?
> 
> Progress indicators :-).
> 
> Maybe that's why Microsoft and Apple solicit using this terminology:
> would they ever change how the widget is shown/rendered, the
> documentation wouldn't need to change.
> 
> It's the already-discussed practice of separating what a widget does by
> how a widget looks like.

Good point.  I'm not wholly opposed to just using the word
"progress indicator" for everything.  But I'm always wary
of choosing terminology that flies in the face of current
usage trends.  The easiest way to get everybody to use the
same term is to pick the term that most people are using
already.

> > Second, what about countdown controls?  They basically
> > look like progress bars (or sometimes "progress pies"),
> > but the control moves backward.  They aren't showing
> > progress.  Usually, they're showing a timeout.
> 
> I don't have any strong opinion on these, but what about "pulsing"
> progress bars, the ones where a cursor move forward and backward inside
> the bar, since there's no exact progress information? How do you call
> them? They're quite used afaik (for example, try installing a package in
> Ubuntu...)

Those are progress indicators.  From the recommendation:

  A progress indicator may look like a progress bar with
  a bouncing, spinning, or otherwise animated bar.

In developer documentation, we call them "indeterminate
progress bars".  But to users, they're just progress
indicators.

--
Shaun