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

[Ziller Eike]

> On Nov 17, 2015, at 12:14, Mathias Hasselmann <mathias at taschenorakel.de> wrote:
> 
> 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.

What was said about build progress information in the original post, is the case for any (lengthy) progress information that we currently show.

>> Build related progress could be shown additionally “over” the build
>> icon,

Please also don’t forget to read this half-sentence. And note the “additionally”.
In general I’d prefer to have one single place where information about lengthy background activity is found. There are many more background activities, some of them triggered manually, some of them triggered automatically. IMO we should be careful with not adding lots of different places with this kind of progress information. But as said, we already show build information as something special elsewhere on everything except Linux, and adding an overlay over the build icon might make sense. It won’t help the general case though.

>> 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.

-- 
Eike Ziller, Senior Software Engineer | The Qt Company
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