16213 - Add throbber capabilities to minimized window (icon)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 82130

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

How about making the taskbar icon change depending on weather or not that window
is downloading a file? IE has a similar feature but it doesn't work properly
(surprise, surprise).

In the next message I will attach two 16x16 icons

Lemming
www.lemnet.com

Comment 1

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Attachment: A temporary normal Mozilla icon

Comment 2

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Attachment: A temporary icon for when mozilla is looking for a page. Both icons are in 16x16 .ico format (converted .BMP)

Comment 3

[davidm]

marking RFE

Comment 4

[Eli Goldberg]

Assigning to German for consideration.

Comment 5

[german]

I cannot see the attachment but I think it's a good idea as an enhancement if
we have time. BTW when clicking the link I get a CGI file, when viewing that
with a hex editor I see "Paint Shop Pro Image File". Please repost to this bug
as GIF. <off topic> we should also change the window title in case of downloads
to show the percentage number first, such that when the windows taskbar buttons
get very small you can at least still see what percentage is done without having
to mouseover. </off topic>

Comment 6

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Attachment: GIF for normal icon. I updated the color for the new skin.

Comment 7

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Attachment: And the active gif, like a disable button.

Comment 8

[german]

Generally like the idea although the means by which you achieve that as shown in
your GIFs should -not- be looking like a disabled button, as windows that are
busy are in fact enabled, not disabled and can be called into focus at any time.
Showing them disabled is confusing. But the idea is good and like to leave this
one the radar for past beta.

Comment 9

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

That is a good point, I originally inverted the colors but that didn't seem
clear enough to me. Being disable might be OK, since most people won't watch a
webpage downloading if they have multiple windows open.

Comment 10

[german]

No, that is a miuse of the disabled appearance. Again since the windows *are*
available they should not be clickable and have enabled appearance. I do like
the idea though of indicating some sense of 'progress'/state for the windows not
currently in sight.

Comment 11

[Garth Wallace]

Bug #23094 is related. It's basically the same thing, but for miniwindows in the
WindowMaker window manager for Linux. Are they similar enough to be merged, or
should they be kept separate?

Comment 12

[leger]

Moving UE/UI component bugs over to new User Interface: Design Feedback 
component.  UE/UI component will be deleted.

Comment 13

[Eli Goldberg]

QA Assigning non-confidential New/Assigned User Interface: Design Feedback bugs 
to Matthew Thomas ([e-mail]).

Matthew Thomas is now the QA owner for the User Interface: Design Feedback 
component. (Bugs that involve UI issues in the Netscape-branded Mozilla browser 
should continue be QA assigned to [e-mail].)

Comment 14

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

German's `off-topic' comments are covered in two `Progress window' component 
bugs: bug 35046 (`[RFE] Show download progress (%) in title bar when minimized') 
and bug 36776 (`[RFE] Show download progress in window icon').

Browser window title bars (in fact, the title bars for any windows which are 
carrying out tasks with determinate progress) should probably use the same scheme 
as the progress window does -- but in all cases, it should only happen when the 
window is minimized (Windows) or window-shaded (MacOS).

Marking All/All (and resummarizing) because this applies on all platforms, and pp 
because this would require different fixes on each platform.

Comment 15

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Why should the icon only change when the window is minimized? I can only speak 
for windows, but I often have many windows active and maximized, all downloading 
webpages. This bug was intended to stop the constant flicking between the 
windows to see if one had download that I currently have.

This bug could be complicated on MacOS. As I understand it, the tasks menu (in 
the top right, equiv of taskbar on windows) will only list one item per 
executable, making this impossible. Also, IIRC, there is no icon for the active 
app anywhere under MacOS, this would need a text version instead of the proposed 
graphical version. (If this was implemented, I imagine it would go along the 
lines of the following character being added to the front of the title bar:
| / - \
As currently happens on some unix programs.)

Comment 16

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

The icon would only change when the window was minimized, because otherwise the 
icon would be constantly flickering between normal and throbbing mode during 
normal browsing. Such flickering in a normally stable part of the UI (the window 
border) would look like a bug.

On MacOS, the proxy icon in the window title bar (bug 36305) would be used.

Comment 17

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

I can sorta see your point. How about making it only change when the window was 
inactive?

Comment 18

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

That would make it look weird on window managers with hover-to-focus.

Comment 19

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Not sure how to resolve this, except have loads of code that leads to a what 
looks like a buggy implementation, or add yet another pref.

As I explained above, making it minimized only would really defeat the purpose 
for me.

Is the flickering really a big problem? You would have thought I would have had 
the same problem with the trobber in Mosaic, being the first throbber I had seen 
in what was previously a static panel. Yet I remember no problem. Also I do have 
a problem with WinAmp (scrolling title) or the download progress windows 
(changing percentage).

I have mentioned this bug on mozillazine so hopefully some other people may have 
ideas.

Comment 20

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I saw this bug on Mozillazine ;-)

What I would do is have the progress all the time, but just a single line of 
e.g. blue pixels along the bottom of an otherwise static logo - a sort of very 
small progress bar. When it reached the far side, the doc is done. Moz might 
stick his tongue out at this point, or change colour. This way, you add the 
functionality but avoid excessive flickering.

BTW, I second the point that said if it only works when the window is minimised 
it defeats the whole object of the exercise. I could definitely do with this 
feature.

Gerv

Comment 21

[shuang (gone)]

Notlikely we will be able to get there but move to later milestone anyway. M20.

Comment 22

[Garth Wallace]

Since this is now a cross-platform bug, Bug #23094 should probably be closed as 
a dup.

Comment 23

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Right you are, Garth ...

Comment 24

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

*** Bug 23094 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 25

[german]

I agree with matthew here in that "it should only happen when the 
window is minimized (Windows) or window-shaded (MacOS)" to keep the UI 'stable' 
and to avoid redundant redundant progress feedback (the status bar of an open 
window in proximity to the windows 98 taskbar or Linux taskbar). Marking future 
to keep the discussion open.

Comment 26

[german]

I propose reassigning this bug to ben, the mozilla UI owner, so he can add this
to his 'ongoing discussions bin'

Comment 27

[Jesse Ruderman]

Making this feature only work for minimized windows would cause the icon to 
change to the "loading" state pretty much only when you minimize a window 
that's loading something.  Since this is when my attention is drawn to the icon 
(because of the Windows animation effect for minimizing a window), it would 
make the UI look unstable.  Making it only work for minimized windows would 
also require me to take an extra action to tell the browser "notify me when 
this new window finishes loading", which would slow me down in opening new 
windows to the point that the feature wouldn't be useful anymore, not to 
mention making the feature hard to discover.

The same problem applies to changing the icon for all but the active window: 
the icon will change from "normal" to "loading" when I click on another taskbar 
icon, which is likely to be when I'm looking at the taskbar.  I'm much less 
likely to be distracted by a small change in the icon if I'm clicking a normal 
link on a webpage than if I'm shuffling windows around.

I don't understand how having an extra progress bar or "finished" indicator 
would make the UI seem less stable (mpt 2000-04-28 10:06).  We already have 
plenty of UI elements that change appearance when the page finishes loading, 
and I think that's fine, because it lets me read the first part of a page and 
still notice when a page finishes loading.  Most other apps don't need to use 
their icons to indicate when they're finished loading something because they 
don't often load information while they're in the background.

Comment 28

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Internet Explorer for Windows flashes the taskbar button when a page has finished 
loading, except when the window is at the front (where you have quite enough 
notification already). Why don't we do that instead? It would be both more 
obvious and less weird than using different icons for ready/busy states.

Comment 29

[timeless]

has anyone seen netpositive's download icon states?  we could follow that 
approach, which is to show % done as a vertical bar.
small icon:
dimensions: 2x14, progress-color: red
border: 1px, color: dark-grey
large icon:
dimensions: 4x29, progress-color: red
border: 1px, color: dark-grey
shadow: 1px, color: black, direction: south-east

for small icon that means progress of 7% is indicated by another row of 2 
pixels.  for large icon progress of 3% is indicated by another row of 4 pixels.

it is possible w/ windows to composite icons on the fly, if we don't, we'd have 
to create 36 icon pairs that are mostly duplicates.

Comment 30

[timeless]

Attachment: false color progress from net+

Comment 31

[Jesse Ruderman]

I've seen IE 5.5's taskbar buttons flashing between grey-darkblue occasionally, 
but it doesn't seem to do that whenever a page loads in an inactive window.  
The only way I can make that happen in IE is to open several instances of IE to 
my homepage at the same time.

Anyway, that effect is designed to get the user's attention, which isn't what 
we need here.  We need a subtle effect that isn't too distracting when you're 
not looking at it, but indicates which which windows are ready for you to click 
on (so you don't waste time switching between a bunch of windows that haven't 
loaded yet).  I'd prefer if it didn't involve flashing or throbbing.

I take back the second paragraph of my last comment, provided that the icon 
changes fairly quickly when I switch windows.  I might not even see a subtle 
icon change when I'm switching between windows because of the large change to 
the taskbar icon when I switch windows (depressed vs un-depressed), and in that 
case always showing the "finished" icon for the active window would be ok.

Comment 32

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 69885.

Comment 33

[Zach Lipton [:zach]]

Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the 
owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard 
work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...

Comment 34

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

This is fixed in tabbed-dialog mode (bug 100706).

Comment 35

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Window icon related, -> Bill Law

Comment 36

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 109037, which would display site icons in the title bar, possibly 
interfering with this use of the window icon.

Comment 37

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

The site icon should only be shown after the page has finished loading, as
happens with the tabs now.

Comment 38

[Garth Wallace]

I'd like to add that, at least in default installations, WindowMaker miniwindows
*only* appear when a window is minimized, AFAICT.

Comment 39

[Steve Chapel]

Fixing status whiteboard to be consistant with other parity-opera bugs for
easier searches. Sorry for the bugspam.

Comment 40

[Ian Tommins ('thelem')]

Resolving as duplicate of "favicons on the taskbar" - when that bug is fixed,
this bug will be redundant. Plus there haven't been any real comments here for
four years.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 82130 ***