Re: Busy-cursor?

[Ian Peters <itp-gnome-list geodesic res cmu edu>]

On Wed, Jan 06, 1999 at 01:24:42PM +0100, Robert Bihlmeyer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> >>>>> On Tue, 5 Jan 1999 18:46:04 +0000 (   )
> >>>>> Peter Astrand <peter@student.liu.se> said:
> 
>  Peter> We are talking about a normal mousecursor, with an small
>  Peter> hourglass attached to it. I think most users will understand
>  Peter> what that means.
> 
> Please explain what it means, because I don't get it.
> 
> (I'd venture that pointer+small-hourglass means that the app in
> question is accepting input, but still quite busy at the moment. While 
> another app loads the panel is not busy at all. So at least *this*
> interpretation of the cursor would be wrong.)
> 
> 	Robbe

Pretty much, you're right.  Windows does this - the arrow is
unchanged, it just gets a little tiny (animated?) hourglass on it.  I
have never found this ``feature'' all that useful.  Either the
application is busy, or it isn't.  Especially with the panel.  If
something has gone wrong with launching an app, then pop up an error
message, but the user shouldn't have to see a special mouse cursor
just to assume that something is going right.

-- 
Ian Peters		``Never attribute to malice what can be explained
ipeters@acm.org			by stupidity'' -- Hanlon's Razor