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0 pointspaxys5y ago0 comments

You're bringing up the easiest use case though. Most complex flows cannot be easily expressed by a single determinable metric.

0 comments

kazinator5y ago

Complex flows can be represented by a tree control full of checkboxes that tick off for things that are done, which can be hidden behind a "show details ..." button next to a regular progress bar. If the users can see the detailed tasks, maybe they will be less ticked off by a jumpy progress bar.

cbhl5y ago

A tree is insufficient for flows at $dayjob, you need a directed acyclic graph to handle fanout/parallelism.

For which a visualization exists internally, but every time someone decides to "fix" the progress bar problem they do a one-off analysis and only wire up the three biggest steps to the bar.

admax88q5y ago

If you can reliably break down your complex flow into a tree of checkboxes, you could just as easily render a truthful progress bar based upon how many sub tasks are done.

eru5y ago

Yes, but that bar would still get hung intermittently whenever a specific task took a long time.

1 more reply

fomine35y ago

Or just show verbose logs like Apt GUI frontend.

kazinator5y ago

Problem with just logging the progress is that the user has no idea where he "bottom" is. A log might as well be a spinning cursor or any other animation.

1 more reply

yyx5y ago

Had problem when GUI closed after trying to install a package. No error, no logs. (or was it defaulting to the normal state with install button and no logs, I don't remember)

Found out about package conflict only after running apt from the terminal.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

kazinator5y ago

cbhl5y ago

A tree is insufficient for flows at $dayjob, you need a directed acyclic graph to handle fanout/parallelism.

For which a visualization exists internally, but every time someone decides to "fix" the progress bar problem they do a one-off analysis and only wire up the three biggest steps to the bar.

admax88q5y ago

If you can reliably break down your complex flow into a tree of checkboxes, you could just as easily render a truthful progress bar based upon how many sub tasks are done.

eru5y ago

Yes, but that bar would still get hung intermittently whenever a specific task took a long time.

1 more reply

fomine35y ago

Or just show verbose logs like Apt GUI frontend.

kazinator5y ago

Problem with just logging the progress is that the user has no idea where he "bottom" is. A log might as well be a spinning cursor or any other animation.

1 more reply

yyx5y ago

Had problem when GUI closed after trying to install a package. No error, no logs. (or was it defaulting to the normal state with install button and no logs, I don't remember)

Found out about package conflict only after running apt from the terminal.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse