Re: Grouse: Progress bars

Don't forget the next to useless progress bars you get in many appplication updates, where it goes up to 100%, then goes back to 0% as it starts updating some other component, with no indication whether or not you are looking at the progress bar for component #2 of 2 or #2 of 25 or whatever. iSeries Access for Windows Service Pack updates are a perfect example of that when you get a new progress bar for each of the components you have installed, as are the so called progress bars when updating IBM's eConfig, or (if I recall correctly) Adobe Reader. I've actually seen some where the progress bar hits say 75% then actually starts going backwards for a while(I think when eConfig opens an existing configuration).

Another prime example from the "olden" days was an old DOS version of Client Access updating some component over a 2400bps SDLC modem connection. It went to 99% after about 2 minutes, but that last 1% took about 2 hours (after I rebooted and restarted a few times after around 30 minutes figuring it was hung I left it running while watching TV and finally saw it finish).

Neil Palmer, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

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--- On Tue, 8/26/08, David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [PCTECH] Grouse: Progress bars
To: "PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users" <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Received: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 4:35 AM
Progress bar really annoy me ... especially whey then
don't actually reflect reality.

I'm currently on a train going from York to Manchester
in the UK and I'm trying to update my GPS with some maps
I omitted ... and the software has been showing 100%
complete on the "Index rebuild" for the maps for
the past 10 minutes ... the progress bars showed decent
progress for a while, but stopped at 100% and didn't go
on to the next step.

Seems to me that, with a good progress bar, you should
never actually see it get to 100% because it should
immediately move on to the next step.

'Course lack of progress bars is even more annoying ...
when my Tivo boots up it just tells me that it's
starting up ... and then it switches to a screen that says
"Almost there, just a few minutes more" ... but
I've had situations (with my old S2 tivo) where it
actually hung up at that step and showed me the "just a
few minutes more" screen for more than an hour.

I really wish programs would tell me WHAT they are doing,
even in general terms (perhaps with an option to give me
technical details), while they are working. At least I can
tell that something is actually happening. Fedora Linux has
a great boot up screen, imo, it defaults to a general screen
that indicates what's happening ... with the option to
show the details.

david

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