Re: [Nautilus-list] Progress Bar on Move

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Jim Knoble wrote:

> You shouldn't have to show progress in a dialog at all.  If there's any
> reason to show progress, it should be shown in the main UI window
> associated with the operation (for example, in a status bar at the
> bottom of the window [or wherever the user wishes to place the status
> bar]).  The means of cancelling the operation---i.e., reversing/undoing
> it---should also be in the main UI window (e.g., a cancel button on the
> tool bar [like Netscape 4.x's "stoplight" button]).

In general, this decision hinges on whether the operation in progress
stops you from interacting with the window in which it's happening.  In
Netscape it doesn't, for example-- you can click on a different link on
the visible page even after it's gone off to fetch another page as the
result of a previous click on a different link.  (I forget whether this
is the case with Nautilus when you're moving/copying files or not).

This, incidentally, is also covered in the draft GNOME HIG's Feedback
chapter :)

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig/choosing-correct-feedback.html

> You should also make clear in the interface what "progress" means. That
> is, if it's (kilo|mega)?bytes, then not only should the progress
> indicator display the units somehere (as well as the numeric amount),
> but the way the progress indicator "fills up" should also correlate to
> the change in units.  Consider using different colors to represent
> "current file" and "total operation", or to represent different
> statuses (e.g., the operation has hung, perhaps due to a faulty NFS
> server).

IMVHO there's not usually much need to show both the 'current file
progress' and 'overall progress'-- the only one that's really of much
interest is the overall progress.  You could perhaps show the filenames
as they're being copied, in case the user really wants to stop (rather
than cancel) the operation after he's sure that a particular file has
been copied, or in case an error occurs while copying a particular file,
but a second progress bar seems like overkill to me.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems