Multiple progress Bars

MooseJam

I just installed a piece of software there and was happily watching the progress bar crawl ever closer to complete, well when it did it goes back to zero as another progress bar starts up, what's the point of a progress bar if it doesn't track progress, stupid software developers

Soundman

Did it have any components written above this progress bar, perhaps showing the progress of that particular section of the software installation...?

Capt'n Midnight

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Next seriously

My personal gripe is the way Vista and Ubuntu have the sweeping bar that gives you no indication of progress

back in the old days of wordstar, they used a flashing font to say "Working" , and it would stay that way even if the pc crashed.

I suspect that its just palette cycling instead of showing a useful % done or better yet steps done

MooseJam

Soundman wrote: »

Did it have any components written above this progress bar, perhaps showing the progress of that particular section of the software installation...?

no, nothing to indicate this was a progress bar showing x part of the install

Lazarus2.0

With exceptions , the crappier the installer the crappier the software tbh .

Capt'n Midnight

nessyguin wrote: »

With exceptions , the crappier the installer the crappier the software tbh .

And the uninstaller is always crappier still

dulpit

What pisses me off with some of these wonderful installers you see is that it has a progress bar, it takes maybe 30 seconds to get to 50%, then maybe 3 or 4 minutes to get to 75%. Not very accurate is it?

Soundman

dulpit wrote: »

What pisses me off with some of these wonderful installers you see is that it has a progress bar, it takes maybe 30 seconds to get to 50%, then maybe 3 or 4 minutes to get to 75%. Not very accurate is it?

The first 50% may just be extraction or a relatively fast part of the installation which explains why it could be done in 30 seconds or whatever, whereas the latter 50% might be more intense installation including registering, installation itself, removal of set-up files and so on.

dulpit

Soundman wrote: »

The first 50% may just be extraction or a relatively fast part of the installation which explains why it could be done in 30 seconds or whatever, whereas the latter 50% might be more intense installation including registering, installation itself, removal of set-up files and so on.

Yes, but then that first "50%" wouldn't really be 50% then, would they?

sceptre

dulpit wrote: »

Yes, but then that first "50%" wouldn't really be 50% then, would they?

Of progress relating to time, no. Of progress relating to installation, maybe.

Zapho

So progress bars are completely pointless. I think all they really indicate is that the machine/software/download is still working and hasn't crashed on you.

Even the whole "3 minutes remaining" thing is useless, because most of the time 3 minutes means 20 seconds.

Soundman

dulpit wrote: »

Yes, but then that first "50%" wouldn't really be 50% then, would they?

Of course it would. Think about it. An installation that is 50% through the installation is still 50% through regardless of how long it took.

eg:

You are running a marathon. You have the energy to do the first 13 miles in an hour but you expend yourself and the second 13 miles takes 2 hours to complete. Does that still mean that the first 13 miles wasn't 50% of the marathon??????????????

(and yes I am saying that a marathon is 26 miles for this example as opposed to 26 miles 385 yards)

dulpit

Ok, well then i'd prefer if progress bars gave an indication of time remaining, not the amount of work that has to be done (which is irrelevant for the user)

Soundman

Thing is though, time remaining would depend on the computer, what software is running, processor speed and so on, not to mention whether the software installing is having to update anything or uninstall, etc, etc, etc...

It would be a bit unrealistic for the installation program to be able to figure it out so it's just easier for it to show work done rather than time left.