[Usability] Re: Splash screens and startup notification

[brian muhumuza <brian muhumuza gmail com>]

On 1/17/06, karderio <karderio gmail com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 08:26 +0100, Stefan Kost wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > karderio wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I was wondering if there was any sort of dogma concerning splash screens
> > > for GNOME applications.
> > >
> > > Seeing as there are virtually no GNOME apps that use splash screens, I
> > > would guess that they are not necessarily recommended. The only purpose
> > > I can see them serving is showing feedback for application startup, for
> > > applications that take some time to start (I'm thinking openoffice).
> > >
> > > Is there any way that startup feedback could be presented to the user
> > > other than with a splash screen ? For example, when you have an
> > > applicationX starting, instead of the "Starting applicationX" in the
> > > window list, could you not have "Starting applicationX - Step Y" and
> > > change this as the startup progresses ?
> > >
> > > Love, Karderio
> >
> > This indee sounds good. I don't like it when splsh screen covering my
> screen
> > space. What about having a progressbar inside the window list. Thus
> immediately
> > after starting the app, the window-list entry would appear with a
> progressbar
> > inside.
>
> Would it not be hard (impossible) to calculate the percentage of time
> until the end of startup for the progressbar ? Would you not have to add
> specific code to each application ? If you wanted some sort of
> indicator, would a throbber not be more appropriate ? I would think
> textual output could be interesting, such as "Starting Bluetooth Client
> - Connecting to remote device" or "Starting OpenOffice - Initializing
> Java", the user would know what he is waiting for, and it would help
> with troubleshooting...
>
> >  From the technical pov, we would need a spalsh api, so that we could show
> a
> > uniformous splash dialog, if there is no window list or the embeded
> startup
> > status if there is.
>
> Does this mean there is no way of doing this with the existing libnotify
> or such ? I was sort of hoping this would not be too complicated :(
>
> Love, Karderio
>
> _______________________________________________

I like the idea of a throbber on the panel because i think startup
progress bars and percentages are not really worth the extra effort
and code, all a user needs to know is that the app is starting and
that's all.