Re: [Usability] Theme Instant Apply

[Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca>]

Thomas Wood wrote:

> Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>
> > On May 2, 2006, at 3:29 AM, Sven Jaborek wrote:
> >
> > > Am Sonntag, den 30.04.2006, 15:42 +0100 schrieb Thomas Wood:
> > >
> > > > Could anyone give me some advice on bug 149323 (HIG issues with Theme
> > > > Preferences). The issue is that the theme manager often takes longer
> > > > than one second to apply a theme, so therefore it should not be 
> > > > instant apply. Would it be acceptable to most people to change the 
> > > > theme manager to explicit apply?
> >
> > That something takes longer than one second to put into effect is not 
> > a good reason to make it explicit-apply. (If it was, mail clients 
> > wouldn't have offline modes.)
> >
> > Instead, I suggest: Reserve room for a small indeterminate progress 
> > indicator (a.k.a. a throbber) and a label directly underneath the 
> > list. Then whenever a theme has been selected for at least half a 
> > second but hasn't finished applying yet, show the progress indicator 
> > and label:
> >
> >     |_______________________________________|V|
> >
> >     @ Applying “Ocean Blue”...
>
> The problem is, it's not technically possible to tell when the theme 
> has finished applying.
>
> -Thomas
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That's an interesting point, I was just thinking the same could be said 
of the user experience with instant apply.  "Is the theme finished 
applying?  Is this the new theme and icons?"  I ask myself that all the 
time when switching themes.

A progress indicator of some sort would be extermely beneficial.

Could this technical limitation then be coined as a bug?

Kirk