Verbose Process Bar ... Export, Save

[thomaso]

An unexpected delay on export or save and their not proceeding process bar was reported in a few topics already. I would appreciate if these bars would display some text, not, to reduce the felt waiting time but rather to inform the user with hints about possible issues, for instance certain tasks, objects or pages/artboards which may cause an delay, fail or crash.

It might help just to know "What is Affinity currently doing?" to get an idea of where it's stuck ... and possibly to look for a culprit or try another solution at the specific spot of the document.

[GarryP]

An interesting idea but I am wondering what information it can give that would be useful.
For example, most of the layers in most of my documents are not named so a running commentary of what is currently being ‘worked on’ would be something like this:

• Page 10, Layer (Artistic Text)
• Page 10, Layer (Artistic Text)
• Page 10, Layer (Artistic Text)
• Page 10, Layer (Artistic Text)
• Page 10, Layer (Curve)
• Page 10, Layer (Curve)
• Page 10, Layer (Curve)
• Page 10, Layer (Curve)
• Page 10, Layer (Curve)
• etc. etc.

That sort of information might help me to see which page might be a problem but it won’t necessarily tell me which layer could be the problem.
However, if we could also see a thumbnail image of the layer being ‘worked on’ – the thumbnails already exist in the Layers Panel, even if they are generated on-the-fly in some cases – then it might be even more useful.

[garrettm30]

On 1/1/2021 at 3:39 AM, GarryP said:

That sort of information might help me to see which page might be a problem but it won’t necessarily tell me which layer could be the problem.

Narrowing down to the specific page would already be a significant improvement and save a lot of time at identifying the problem.

[GarryP]

I agree.
If we can see which page seems to be causing the problem – if such information is correct – then that would be useful, but it might be nice if we can get just a little bit of extra information, if it’s not too much extra work, at the time, for the developers.

[garrettm30]

@GarryP I believe I misread the intention of your post to which I replied, so now I see that we are in agreement and that my own post was not really so helpful. I apologize.

[thomaso]

Hi both, in my initial request I avoided any specification of such an additional text for 3 reasons:

1. It's currently unknown to us in what order certain tasks are done (maybe e.g. all clippings are calculated separated from all adjustments – instead of all tasks page by page)

2. Any hint can be useful, even if cryptical, non-human text. For instance just a number or any character combination might enable us to post it to the forum asking for further info.

3. Currently the documentation is rather weak than detailed, so a request for a specific text style or info detail might require too much developer's effort to get delivered any info at all.

[GarryP]

@garrettm30 No need to apologise; I could have been clearer in what I wrote.

thomaso: I think I’m in agreement with you there.

I might also suggest that this kind of information should be ‘hidden’ from the user unless they specifically ask for it, maybe in some kind of “Details” pop-out of the Exporting window, a bit like what you can have with some installation routines where you can either have just the progress bar or open a panel to see what’s happening. In other words, don’t tell the user what’s happening unless they want to know.

[thomaso]

On 1/5/2021 at 9:46 AM, GarryP said:

this kind of information should be ‘hidden’ from the user unless they specifically ask for it, (...) In other words, don’t tell the user what’s happening unless they want to know.

Why complicating? – Remember, one reason to request more info was the lethargic progress bar, which often looks like not working (not progressing, not informing) during an export or save action.

[GarryP]

It’s just normal for this kind of ‘technical’ information to be hidden from the user by default since, in most cases, and for most users, it’s not necessary for them to see it or want it.
Most export processes work as they should and there’s no reason to see what’s going on; press the button and get the export, job done and no reason to look under the covers to see that it’s working okay.
It should only be the rare cases where something isn’t working properly when the user should need to look at the details.
Analogy: When I drive my car on a day-to-day basis I don’t need to keep monitoring the engine to make sure it’s working as it should, but a technician will probably want to get the information if something goes wrong.
All I’m saying is, give the user the choice as to whether they see the details or not.