97028 - `Resolving host xyz.foo.bar' should be `Looking for xyz.foo.bar ...'

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Networking, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Build: 2001082104, Mac OS 9.1

To reproduce:
1.  Go to a Web site on a server you haven't been to in a while (such that it's
    not in your DNS cache).
2.  Look at the status bar.

What you see:
*   `Resolving host nameOfServer'

What you should see:
*   `Looking for nameOfServer ...'

Rationale:
*   `Looking for' is just as accurate as `Resolving host', but it's much more
    likely to be understood by a typical user.
*   Where a window is not at its normal at-rest state, status text describing
    the busyness should end with an ellipsis.

Comment 1

[Alex Bishop]

I always thought "Looking for/up" made more sense than "Resolving" (4.x used
"Connect: Looking up host: nameOfServer...").

Comment 2

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

uh, not sure why this bug went to me, re-assiging away now.

Comment 3

[benc]

Eventually, we need to design several UI behaviors, tailored to various users.

At the lowest level of experience, I would like us to use phone-analogies:

"Finding www.mozilla.org"
"Connected to www.mozilla.org"
"Finished."

I think this is a really good suggestion. Since this could extend to many areas,
can we try to have an initial discussion in the netlib newsgroup?

Comment 4

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Screenshot

Comment 5

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Patch for the screenshot

Comment 6

[Håkan Waara]

This is a very simple one-liner (well, ok, two-liner) that simply does what the
summary says; changing "resolving host" to be "looking for".

Rubber r=/sr=?  Bradley?

Comment 7

[Blake Ross]

Should it end with space + ellipsis? If so, sr=blake.

Comment 8

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

No, it should be just ellipsis, no space (in en-US, anyway). And the string
shouldn't be using the three `...' characters; it should be using the single
ellipsis character, which has better spacing.

Comment 9

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Patch without the space (note the character '...' didn't work)

Comment 10

[Håkan Waara]

Comment on attachment 48008 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch without the space (note the character '...' didn't work)

Ok, now I only need a r= from someone, and I'll check this in when 0.9.5 reopens.

Comment 11

[Håkan Waara]

Comment on attachment 48008 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch without the space (note the character '...' didn't work)

New patch coming up with '...' after all statuses that's in progress (i.e., ends with "ing")

Comment 12

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: New patch

Comment 13

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

looks good, r=doron

Comment 14

[Håkan Waara]

Comment on attachment 48039 [details] [diff] [review]
New patch

ok, got the necessary reviews.

Comment 15

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-5, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Why "..." after "Finished FTP Transaction"?

Comment 16

[Blake Ross]

My review was contingent on making the verbs ending in 'ing' include ellipses.

That said, mpt says status text should have an ellipsis unless it's the 'at
rest' text and the window is 'at rest'.  I'm not sure when Finished FTP
Transaction even shows up since I don't see it when going to ftp sites, and I
don't know whether that or Document: Done should be the finished state for FTP
sites.  Seems like it should either be the final state, be changed to
"Finishing", or be removed altogether.

Comment 17

[Håkan Waara]

Comment on attachment 48039 [details] [diff] [review]
New patch

A new patch coming up. It will:

* Remove some redundant comments
* Make dbaron's suggested change

I assume the reviews still apply unless anyone explicitely say otherwise.

Comment 18

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Proposed final patch

Comment 19

[benc]

Before we check this in, I'd like to get some consensus on what the total
behavior of the status bar should be, rather than starting a series of unrelated
modifications, which is where this might go...

Comment 20

[Håkan Waara]

benc, I see no objection on the change made in this bug, and my patch has the
necessary reviews. 

What is the reason to hold this up?

Comment 21

[benc]

On a design basis, I think "resolving" is better than "looking up". There are
also semantic differences between the two (looking up could refer to a search
engine or database as well).

Additionally, I think we need to build a detailed model of how the code (is it
doing name resolution, making a connection, accesing data, timing out,
completing, etc...). From there, we need to decide what kind of code paths allow
certain status messages, and then implement them. hacking this area is really a
bad idea.

For example: status was being set to "resolving" and left that way after DNS
resolution occurred for situations where layout would hang up before the page
would render. Networking took tons of bugs on this, even though it was not "our"
fault.

We have not had many users submit bugs saying that "resolving" did not make
sense to them. Since Mozilla distributions are for contributor testing, this
level of technical detail is useful, especially since we have many networking
problems that contributors analyze.

Comment 22

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Hwaara: "assuming reviews still apply" for an altered patch (unless altered
under "change this and you have r=mozbot" rules) is not really acceptable, even
for small patches.

We appear to have tension here between an undeniable usability increase, and the
possibility raised by benc of confusing people who are debugging network
problems with Mozilla. My view is that Mozilla testers are smart enough to work
out what's going on, whereas Mozilla distributors' end users will appreciate the
easier to understand messages. I know IE has gone down this route.

If Mozilla is stuck on the wrong message too long, that's an orthogonal problem
to what the message text is.

Gerv

Comment 23

[Håkan Waara]

I don't think programmers debugging Mozilla will stare at the statusbar. The
statusbar is for the user to tell what's going on. What the exact event is, is
not really interesting; from the user point of view, it's interesting to know
that Mozilla is looking up the domain.

Comment 24

[Håkan Waara]

This bug has obviously stalled, sigh.

The patch in here remains attached... I'll just reassign this because I'm tired
of having my patches rot due to inactivity and last-minute arguments.

Comment 25

[Blake Ross]

Sigh.  Let's get the changes to add the ellipses checked in, at least.

Comment 26

[Jesse Ruderman]

I would prefer "looking up xyz.foo.bar" to "looking for xyz.foo.bar".  I think 
advanced users would be able to figure out that "looking up" means "resolving 
host through DNS" more easily.  "Looking for" conjures up images of a browser 
stumbling blindly around the Internet, trying to find a server.

By the way, the phrase "looking up" has has precedent for use in connection 
with DNS:

*** Connecting to irc.mozilla.org (6667)
-irc.mozilla.org- *** Looking up your hostname...
-irc.mozilla.org- *** Found your hostname, cached

Comment 27

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

r=doron

Comment 28

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

->0.9.6

Comment 29

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

Comment on attachment 48152 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed final patch

sr=[e-mail]. OK.

Comment 30

[Blake Ross]

Ellipses aspect checked in. File a new bug to necko to change the actual wording
for various status texts, as that team needs to be involved in the discussion.

Comment 31

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Um, okay. Filed bug 105892, "`Resolving host xyz.foo.bar...' should be `Looking 
for xyz.foo.bar...'".