Re: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus user testing at MIT

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinout cs vu nl>]

Hello Nicolas,

On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:

> This way it may work. However it does make the hourglass a
> useless launch indicator, which was my point.

Yes, but I think we can agree that this is a bad idea anyhow, having read
the other replies.

> * unlike throbbers, difficult to see state of all windows at
> a glance.

Remember that you still have the active/inactive color indication on the
window title bars. I understand you would like to be able to see at a
glance which applications are busy and which aren't?

> > starting you can see its name in the tasklist applet with
> > a hourglass icon next to it;
>
> Well, my Gnome certainly hasn't.

I'm using the Gnome version that came with Mandrake 7.2 and it's
definitely in there. :-)
So I don't know if this is some kind of Mandrake-specific enhancement
(more like something that came from Helix?!) but it would be smart to
incorporate this into the next Gnome release, if it's not already in.

> launching state

- see above

> busy state

- 'wait' mouse cursor

> idle state

- nothing special(?)

> connecting state (for network apps)

- throbber

> question state (window stuck until a dialog been closed...)

Do you mean modal dialogs?

> On the other hand, title bars/task list entries are clearly
> associated with *one* window all the time, a lot of them can
> be consulted simultaneously, so putting the hints there
> would be the right thing IMHO.

If you want to put indicators of all the mentioned states in the tasklist
entries, the already small screen space that's available would become even
more crowded.

Adding an extra indicator to the titlebar could be a good idea - I'm not
quite sure about that.

regards,
-- 

Reinout van Schouwen
e-mail    : reinout cs vu nl
voicemail : 020-8750706