[Qt-creator] Please change the postion of the build status indicator

[Mathias Hasselmann]

Am 16.11.2015 um 09:51 schrieb Ziller Eike:
>
>> On Nov 13, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Ariel Molina <ariel at edis.mx> wrote:
>>
>> I'm in favor of keeping related things on the same place.
>>
>> How about using the wasted space in the bottom-left? I recall
>> (years ago) Visual Studio transformed the build button into a Stop
>> button to stop the build. Xcode currently keeps the progess bar
>> very close to the Play and Stop buttons.
>>
>> http://imgur.com/SREHbA7
>
> This is very centric on “build” related progress.

Sure, check the subject. It's all about the build related progress.
The initial author, and nobody of those complaining seems to care about
search progress and such.

> Build related progress could be shown additionally “over” the build
> icon, It is also already shown on the application icon on Windows and OS
> X btw. (I’m open for patches on Linux btw, see progressmanager_x11.cpp .
> Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a unified way to achieve that, if
> at all.)
> If someone wants to look at how to show a OS notification when a
> build finishes, I’m open for that too :)

Ok, so the build progress indicator is in that bottom right corner,
because that progress indicator is not only used for build progress, but
also for other progress indications. Still this doesn't answer the
question, if that is the best position for the progress indicator.

I somehow live under the impression, that most UI elements should give
their user feedback as close as reasonably possible to the place of the
user interaction. Most trivial example: Clicking a button directly
transforms that button to give an immediate feedback.

I'd put the build progress indicator in a similar field: The user
triggered a build via keyboard short cut, menu entry, or by pressing one
of the three buttons (build, run, debug). Short cuts don't have any
direct counter part on the UI, menu items disappear right after
interaction. The buttons stay. Where does the user look, where does she
focus after triggering the action? For the short cut case she most
likely focuses on her code, that is she most likely looks at the center
of the screen. For menu interaction her focus is somewhere near the top
left of the window, or even top left of the screen for OS X and Ubuntu.
For the button press she'll focus for sure at the bottom left, where the
build buttons are. Notice a pattern? In none of the cases she will focus
on the bottom right corner. So having the user feedback at this very
place is the worst possible place for giving feedback. So what other
places to we have for feedback?

- The center of screen? Way to intrusive.
- Near the menus? Well, the just closed after interaction.
- Somewhere in that toolbar above the code editor? Very prominent place,
much easier to spot. Too prominent I'd say and also very crowded
already. Also I don't see any obvious place were to put it there.
- Somewhere near the build buttons. Well, it's exactly one of the places 
the user interacted with, and it are UI elements that just turned into 
insensitive state, leaving the user to wonder when they'll deliver their 
work and when they'll become usable again. Perfect place for giving 
feedback, for showing build progress.

For the first two cases we also don't know were the user looks to expect
any feedback on the long running build process. In the case of a button
press we very much know, that the user is focusing at this very screen
region with the buttons.

While we are at it, why is the search progress shown in the bottom right 
corner, instead within the search pane's toolbar? Ok, weak one I have to 
admit, since the search pane is in the bottom area and in contrast to 
the build buttons, the search pane's generic progress indicator is very 
visible, very easy to notice.

> Another ok place for a general progress indicator might be where
> currently locator is shown. If we move that somewhere else probably
> all people who regularly use locator with the mouse will complain :P
>
> Otherwise, OS notifications will always get in the way. On OS X they
> appear in upper right corner, on Ubuntu I’ve seen something popup in
> the middle bottom of the screen....

That rather was GNOME Shell: Ubuntu Unity shows notifications in the top 
right corner.

Ciao,
Mathias