better page load status indicator?

[dnorman]

This is starting to drive me crazy... The little pinwheel isn't enough to know at a glance that a page is still loading, nor how much is left. I really miss the thermometer progress bar in Safari. It doesn't have to be under the address bar - it could be a little thermometer display in the tab thumbnail, but something more meaningful than spin-spin-spin-spin would really help.

[Forrest]

There's always the activity monitor.

[climbingtractor]

I'd have to agree. Stick it in the status bar where it belongs. Bringing up the activity monitor is hardly 'at a glance'.

[andreas_g]

i like omniweb's status indicator. because the way safari does it, is terrible. the bar may show 80% after 2 seconds, and then you have to wait 10 until it is completed.
there is no way to make an exact guess how long a site will take to load, because some resources load quickly, others will take a while.

[dnorman]

I'm not meaning the thermometer as a time-until-loaded estimator, just as a simple theres-still-some-stuff-to-load-but-its-mostly-loaded-already kind of thing.

It could be a simple pie chart indicator in the tab thumbnail, rather than a long thermometer. Just a way to see at a glance if something is partially/mostlly/completely loaded.

[Forrest]

Bringing up the activity monitor is hardly 'at a glance'.

How so? If knowing how long something has left to load is important, just put it next to your browser window.

just as a simple theres-still-some-stuff-to-load-but-its-mostly-loaded-already kind of thing.

The thing is, there's nothing anymore accurate about a progress bar than what currently exists. Well, nothing short of the activity monitor. This is because "mostly loaded" is a complete guess. There could be one ad lagging behind so, although the progress bar may show the page is 95% complete, it may only be 5% complete. Looking at the activity monitor is the only real way to have an educated guess on what's left to load. Then you can see that one resource is taking 20 seconds to load but everything else is done.

Another indicator that already exists is in the status bar. It will show something like "15 of 30 resources loaded." This is more accurate than a progress bar. I can see that half of the resources are loaded, but it doesn't imply that the page is halfway done loading - unlike a progress bar.

[dnorman]

but, a complete guess is good enough. a visual indicator that can be stuck in the tab thumbnail is much more useful than having to activate the tab to scan down to the status bar and then parse the "x of y items remaining" line. It's not at-a-glance, and it doesn't work if you're loading up a bunch of tabs.

[Forrest]

Interesting. I'm sure there's a specific name for it, but I'm really happy with the status indicator that Apple introduced so many years ago that has largely replaced progress bars where they aren't accurate. It is much more accurate though less specific. I like the fact it doesn't give false info like a status bar often does.

I would rather computers leave guesswork to me ;)

[Bob Williams]

I believe what the OP is asking for is essentially just a graphical representation of the "x of y resources loaded" messages, and to have it associated with the thumbnails. You're viewing a progress bar as a measure of *time* remaining, while the OP is wanting one that simply shows a measure of the number of *resources* remaining. Trying to guess time is bad since it's essentially unknown, but the resource count is known (generally) and so is a perfectly valid use of a progress bar. I'm pretty sure this is how progress bars have always worked in browsers, but a lot of people misinterpret them to purely represent time, which is why they are sometimes derided. Time is definitely a function of resources, but other factors in the function weigh much more heavily. That doesn't make the progress bar any less useful, though, which is why OG provides a textual version in the status bar (that is, when the site hasn't decided to hide it on you...).

Anyway, I think this makes great sense in OW. It's the same information you're already given (the resource count), but displayed graphically and in a place where we can see it without having to switch to a tab. Right now, I have 24 tabs visible in my tab drawer. If I crash, then on restart I just just get to watch a bunch of pinwheels spin for a completely indeterminate amount of time. Further, all that loading slows OW down to a crawl, so switching between tabs is a pain, though I can read a page just fine. But which one to read? The only way to know if the page is 95% loaded and simply waiting on an ad, or wether it's still waiting for the initial response from the server, is to switch to the tab and see. A graphical resource load progress bar right on the thumbnails would give me very useful state information for all visible tabs at a mere glance. The activity monitor helps a bit, but its takes up a lot of ever-valuable screen real estate, it's loaded with far more information than is necessary for this simple task, and I've found it rather cumbersome to use--especially when there is a lot of activity going on.

Incidentally, this is very closely related to a long-time pet peeve of mine: browsers refusing to honor requests to stop loading pages. Sometimes, they wait to finish loading a slow-loading resource, and sometimes they wait to finish loading the entire page, but no matter how they stall, I *hate* it. It's a frustrating game of clicking the Stop button, hitting escape, and hitting cmd-., over and over, just trying to get *something* to work. At least OW has separate Reload and Stop buttons; in Safari, it's the same button, so you click Stop, have it ignored until the page is done, and then watch the browser process your click as a click on Restart, which means you get to start the whole, painful process all over again. Every browser I've ever used on every computer has suffered from this, and I'm not sure why. It's as though they simply can't back out of the thread stack on demand. Whatever the reason, it's annoying!

[Forrest]

I believe what the OP is asking for is essentially just a graphical representation of the "x of y resources loaded" messages, and to have it associated with the thumbnails. You're viewing a progress bar as a measure of *time* remaining, while the OP is wanting one that simply shows a measure of the number of *resources* remaining.

That's not the case, I have not been saying that a progress bar is strictly a measure of time. All that I have been saying is that it is a measure of something that, in this case, cannot be done accurately.

Load a complex page and watch the status bar. You will see the number of total resources increase. If a progress bar was used on every tab, you would see them constantly getting longer and shorter, then longer again, then shorter... as the pages load. This is unless the total measure of the progress bar was a constant value. For example, if a full bar was equal to 1000 resources. Otherwise OW would have to continually recalculate the overall measure of the bar.

Trying to guess time is bad since it's essentially unknown, but the resource count is known (generally) and so is a perfectly valid use of a progress bar.

I agree that measuring time remaining to load is essentially unknown. However, measuring based on resource count is far from perfect. This is especially true with sites that use Flash and AJAX. They will send the site one resource (eg, a swf) and once that's loaded it may request a number of other resources (eg, jpegs, text files...)

I'm pretty sure this is how progress bars have always worked in browsers, but a lot of people misinterpret them to purely represent time, which is why they are sometimes derided.

That's a good point. Even if the bar measured resources, a lot of people would think it measures time and thus be unhappy with its display.

Time is definitely a function of resources, but other factors in the function weigh much more heavily. That doesn't make the progress bar any less useful, though, which is why OG provides a textual version in the status bar (that is, when the site hasn't decided to hide it on you...).

The difference with the text version, IMHO, is it leaves the guesswork to the user. In other words - it's just reporting the facts and not trying to interpret them into some measure of completeness.

Right now, I have 24 tabs visible in my tab drawer. If I crash, then on restart I just just get to watch a bunch of pinwheels spin for a completely indeterminate amount of time. Further, all that loading slows OW down to a crawl, so switching between tabs is a pain, though I can read a page just fine. But which one to read? The only way to know if the page is 95% loaded and simply waiting on an ad, or wether it's still waiting for the initial response from the server, is to switch to the tab and see. A graphical resource load progress bar right on the thumbnails would give me very useful state information for all visible tabs at a mere glance. The activity monitor helps a bit, but its takes up a lot of ever-valuable screen real estate, it's loaded with far more information than is necessary for this simple task, and I've found it rather cumbersome to use--especially when there is a lot of activity going on.

First of all, if what you're looking for is an at-a-glance graphical representation of page loading status of multiple tabs, without having to click on them - that already exists. At least when "start drawing before entirely loaded" is checked, the tab thumbnails provide an indication of how much has loaded in a page. Furthermore, this is far more accurate than a resource count progress bar would be.

I'll use the example you cite - the ad. A progress bar isn't going to let you know if that's what's holding up the page. You will still have to click on the tab to see if you can read the content. Even if the page has loaded 99% of the resources, one can't tell from a progress bar that the last 1% is the text on the page. So if you're trying to avoid waiting for all your tabs to load before you can find one to read, a progress bar isn't the answer.

Instead, one can watch the existing thumbnails and once the content of one displays, switch to that tab.


Incidentally, this is very closely related to a long-time pet peeve of mine: browsers refusing to honor requests to stop loading pages. Sometimes, they wait to finish loading a slow-loading resource, and sometimes they wait to finish loading the entire page, but no matter how they stall, I *hate* it. It's a frustrating game of clicking the Stop button, hitting escape, and hitting cmd-., over and over, just trying to get *something* to work. At least OW has separate Reload and Stop buttons; in Safari, it's the same button, so you click Stop, have it ignored until the page is done, and then watch the browser process your click as a click on Restart, which means you get to start the whole, painful process all over again. Every browser I've ever used on every computer has suffered from this, and I'm not sure why. It's as though they simply can't back out of the thread stack on demand. Whatever the reason, it's annoying!

I completely agree with you on that. It's something that has bugged me for a long time.

[Bob Williams]

That's not the case, I have not been saying that a progress bar is strictly a measure of time.

I apologize, then, for misinterpreting you.

All that I have been saying is that it is a measure of something that, in this case, cannot be done accurately.

Load a complex page and watch the status bar. You will see the number of total resources increase.

That's why I said the resource count was generally fixed, because it's not in every case. As it happens, most of the sites I visit tend to have a fixed resource count, but I guess more often it's not fixed.

If a progress bar was used on every tab, you would see them constantly getting longer and shorter, then longer again, then shorter... as the pages load. This is unless the total measure of the progress bar was a constant value. For example, if a full bar was equal to 1000 resources. Otherwise OW would have to continually recalculate the overall measure of the bar.

But that's exactly what the text counter does. A growing progress bar (or conversely, a shrinking % done) would be exactly the same but graphical instead of textual. Having it be graphical simply lets you get the gist of what's happening without the burden of details--and often, especially when you're moving along quickly, that's exactly what you want. It's very similar to an analog tach or speedo in a car versus digital ones. (If you're not a driving enthusiast, just ask someone who is whether they prefer digital or analog gauges and why.)

That said, they wouldn't necessarily need to get shorter. If resources are added to the count, the bars could just hold their current positions until they once again accurately represented the overall measure. I suspect this is what other browsers do, which explains why their progress bars tend to pause periodically. I would actually prefer they change fill length (perhaps with the addition of a high-water marker), though, as then you can see--and know--exactly what's happening instead of guessing.

The difference with the text version, IMHO, is it leaves the guesswork to the user. In other words - it's just reporting the facts and not trying to interpret them into some measure of completeness.

But a progress bar would be reporting the exact same information, just visually. Basically, you're being told what proportion of the presently known resources have already been loaded. If more resources are added, you adjust it.

First of all, if what you're looking for is an at-a-glance graphical representation of page loading status of multiple tabs, without having to click on them - that already exists. At least when "start drawing before entirely loaded" is checked, the tab thumbnails provide an indication of how much has loaded in a page. Furthermore, this is far more accurate than a resource count progress bar would be.

It's far more accurate if the tabs are big enough to see that level of detail, but mine aren't. I can see that the navigation graphics and such are starting to appear, but I can't see whether the body text is there yet. Also, remember that there's a list view of the tabs where you have no preview at all; a progress indicator would support both tab styles. (WRT the situation I specifically mentioned, most of the time, after a restart, OW opens up my tabs in list view and then switches on its own back to icon view sometime after it finishes loading everything. Thus, even if my tabs were normally big enough to see that much detail, it wouldn't help me in this case.)

I'll use the example you cite - the ad. A progress bar isn't going to let you know if that's what's holding up the page. You will still have to click on the tab to see if you can read the content. Even if the page has loaded 99% of the resources, one can't tell from a progress bar that the last 1% is the text on the page. So if you're trying to avoid waiting for all your tabs to load before you can find one to read, a progress bar isn't the answer.

Except in very rare cases (mostly AJAX-extreme cases like gMail), the text on the page is part of the base HTML, which is the primary resource, and the ads are usually secondary resources (i.e., those that are only known about after the primary resource--the basic HTML--is loaded). As a result, when you're stuck loading the very last resource, it's almost always an ad or at worst, some other image on the page. Very, very rarely is it the text.

I completely agree that this is all far from optimal. Unfortunately, I can't think of a workable solution that *is* optimal.

[Forrest]

But that's exactly what the text counter does. [...] But a progress bar would be reporting the exact same information, just visually. Basically, you're being told what proportion of the presently known resources have already been loaded. If more resources are added, you adjust it.

I think that sums up a clear difference in our opinions. I think the text version is just reporting the facts, and that any sort of bar that acts as a measure of those facts, is just a guess. I would rather the guesswork be left up to the user.

It's far more accurate if the tabs are big enough to see that level of detail, but mine aren't. I can see that the navigation graphics and such are starting to appear, but I can't see whether the body text is there yet.

So make them bigger. ;) I just tried this on my 12" PowerBook where I have the tabs adjusted so that the window accommodates the dock on the right but I don't have to scroll horizontally for most sites. I could tell which parts of the page was loading. So I'm not sure what to say to you on that one.

Also, remember that there's a list view of the tabs where you have no preview at all; a progress indicator would support both tab styles. (WRT the situation I specifically mentioned, most of the time, after a restart, OW opens up my tabs in list view and then switches on its own back to icon view sometime after it finishes loading everything. Thus, even if my tabs were normally big enough to see that much detail, it wouldn't help me in this case.)

That's really weird. I do what you often do as well, but never have it launch in list view then switch. I don't use list view, and the only reason I can think of using it is to conserve space. Would adding a progress bar to those tabs be useful for the people who are concerned about space?

Except in very rare cases (mostly AJAX-extreme cases like gMail), the text on the page is part of the base HTML, which is the primary resource, and the ads are usually secondary resources (i.e., those that are only known about after the primary resource--the basic HTML--is loaded). As a result, when you're stuck loading the very last resource, it's almost always an ad or at worst, some other image on the page.

I disagree on that. Obviously it has a great deal to do with the sites a user visits, but my bet would be that a great number - possibly the majority - of sites don't have all the resources linked to from within the HTML. Very often site have a linked CSS file which also links to images.

Very, very rarely is it the text.

Agreed.

I completely agree that this is all far from optimal. Unfortunately, I can't think of a workable solution that *is* optimal.

I have seen software all to often try and be smart about things, and end up looking dumb in the process. Look at Windows and it's "unknown" errors. They're trying to be smart about telling the user what the error was, but all too often the error is "unknown."

Safari's implementation is a good example of another re-hash of using a progress bar to denote how far a page has loaded. It can start off with a quarter inch, within a second shoot to 90% full then sit there for another ten seconds. Netscape used to switch to the striped bar when it was recalculating how much was left. Firefox no longer does this. Camino is much like Firefox, except it does occasionally show a progress bar. I've seen it both striped and full. I'm not sure what it's trying to denote. IE7 currently includes both a circular status icon, as well as a progress bar. In my testing it typically shows one bar (~10%) then jumps straight to full. IE6 does the waving of the Windows logo along with the same progress bar IE7 has.

None of these do the job well in indicating how far a page has loaded. I'm the type of person who thinks if a job isn't worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all.

[Bob Williams]

I think that sums up a clear difference in our opinions. I think the text version is just reporting the facts, and that any sort of bar that acts as a measure of those facts, is just a guess. I would rather the guesswork be left up to the user.

I'm still missing you here, though. If the text version says "5 of 10", you don't really care that 5 resources have loaded, and you don't really care that there are 10 resources in total (at the moment) - those are transient facts that, in themselves, aren't usually important. What you're interested in is the relationship between them, and that's why they're presented together--with a word ('of') that strongly denotes a relationship, no less--without even the option to do otherwise. If you're familiar with basic statistics, it's like looking at two sets of results versus looking at the correlation between them; each set of results on its own is of limited usefulness, while determining the relationship between them is very useful.

Further, any conclusion drawn on the relationship between x and y is mathematically just as much fact as x and y themselves. You can even swap things around them, showing something like "5 resources loaded (50%)", which is enough to derive that y is 10. We're talking about equivalent things in a literal, mathematical sense. Massaged algebraically, yes, but still equivalent. A progress bar doesn't change this at all; it simple gives the information visually. You may not know the exact numbers (though some progress bars do provide them), but the human brian can process that visual feedback in a very similar way, and when the numbers themselves aren't important, the visuals are good enough. In fact, progress bars show the relationship better (in a human interpretive speed sense) than the two numbers alone - which is why OSes are filled with progress bars instead of simple pairs of numbers.

In short, the only guesswork is about the true total resource count, and that remains just as much a guess whether you're using a textual or visual representation. Beyond that single guess, you're solidly into the realm of guess-free mathematics. And since OW doesn't try to make that guess, there's simply no guesswork going on at all.

That's really weird. I do what you often do as well, but never have it launch in list view then switch. I don't use list view, and the only reason I can think of using it is to conserve space.

I very rarely use list view of my own accord (it's more efficient for lots of tabs, but I just like the nice-looking thumbnails too much to give them up), but OW regularly switches to them on me at startup. Well, more accurately, it just starts up with them. Not always, but often. As for the switch back, sometimes it happens when I start switching among the tabs, and sometimes it just happens on its own. Sometimes it even does them as I use them. It is indeed a bit weird. I figured it was just OG's way of conserving processor time by not trying to render several dozens of tabs simultaneously, but perhaps not.

Would adding a progress bar to those tabs be useful for the people who are concerned about space?

I don't see why not. It need not be big. In fact, it need not even be the standard scroll thumb-like bubble blob (hey, if Safari can get away with it...). I can visualize a 2px or so high bar being included right under the name; this probably wouldn't require making the tabs any taller at all, or if so, then by just a pixel or two, which I don't think many folks would argue against.

I disagree on that. Obviously it has a great deal to do with the sites a user visits, but my bet would be that a great number - possibly the majority - of sites don't have all the resources linked to from within the HTML. Very often site have a linked CSS file which also links to images.

I didn't say all resources tend to be linked in the HTML file. I said the page's body text is usually in the HTML, and I stand by that. On a well-designed page, the primary purpose of the HTML is to serve as a vessel for the text content. On poorly designed pages (most, unfortunately), the HTML still almost always serves this purpose, but it also serves to provide much of the formatting information.

I have seen software all to often try and be smart about things, and end up looking dumb in the process. Look at Windows and it's "unknown" errors. They're trying to be smart about telling the user what the error was, but all too often the error is "unknown."

I agree we don't want OW jumping to conclusions on us, especially if those conclusions will often be incorrect. But a progress bar representing the x of y resource status is does no such thing; it simply presents the same information in a different way. In either case, it's up to the user to not jump to conclusions and read the data for what it actually is.

Safari's implementation is a good example of another re-hash of using a progress bar to denote how far a page has loaded. It can start off with a quarter inch, within a second shoot to 90% full then sit there for another ten seconds.

Yup, and OW's x of y may jump to 9 of 10 then sit there for ten seconds. What's the difference? Assuming you don't care that the browser believes there to be 10 resources at the moment and that it's loaded 9 of them, they're the same thing. Again, as long as you don't try to interpret either one directly as a measure of time, then they both are useful. Admittedly, it's easier for a naive user to fall into the trap of assuming a progress bar relates to time than an x of y, but not by a whole lot. And when most free, OS-provided browsers do it, it's a hard argument to make that OW should protect naive users :-).

[David Latapie]

I'm not meaning the thermometer as a time-until-loaded estimator, just as a simple theres-still-some-stuff-to-load-but-its-mostly-loaded-already kind of thing.So do I. I really like Safari's progress bar. On Firefox, there was Fusion then Fission (now, both are abandonned). I would like such an indicator for OW (plus it would save me another icon — that would be be two with a merged stop/reload). Of course, there would still be a round loading icon for the mini-tabs—I don't care much about the tab loading, just about the loading of the page I'm presently viewing.

By the way, I use list view exclusively. Back in the days when OW was painfully slow (praise 5.5!), the omnigang advised me to swith to list view and it helped. I have a TiBook 800 and if I can save CPU, I do.

[zottel]

Actually, I would like to see a status bar or pie chart that correctly represents "x of y". X-) Meaning, of course, that it would jump to shorter from longer while loading is in progress. The problem with the usual implementation is that the bar might show 90% when nine out of ten resources are loaded - and then the css is complete, for example, and suddenly there are 60 resources, only ten of which are complete, but the bar stays at 90% till this is correct.

Another suggestion: In the tab icons, instead of that rotating thingy there could be translucent numbers showing the "x of y" values.