Hylton Clarke wrote:
> 
> Sean Pecor wrote:
> 
> > On Tuesday 08 May 2001 11:33, Stephen Yates wrote:
> > > >I don't like this at all. There must be a better way to make it clear to
> > > > the user that the application is starting up. How about a kind of
> > > > titlebar with the name of the started application which will appear when
> > > > you clicked the button. After a short period this titlebar then 'docks'
> > > > into the taskbar
> >
> > I think the best solution is toggle a "single task" environment, that is
> > turned on by administrators (like the person from the Internet Cafe). When
> > enabled, the entire screen would gray 50% with a big "Please Wait,
> > Loading..." text in the middle. Like a ScreenSaver of some sort that is
> > started when a program icon is clicked and stopped when the program is
> > available for input. This would be VERY HELPFUL for many beginners.
> 
> Again, you are catering for the beginner.

That's because the suggestion was for an Internet Cafe or other places
which are mostly used by beginners.

> That would piss me off no end, if I
> had no access to my screen while waiting for something to load. The idea of
> having an hour glass linked to the mouse pointer works fine for me.

Well, personally, I like hour glass pointers, but that's probably
because I grew up staring at them on a single-tasking Mac :-)

I suggested a long time ago that launched apps could draw zoom rects
from the icon to the edges of the screen as visual feedback that
something was happening. By the time the zoom rects were gone, the app
should have launched. Power users could switch that option off if they
didn't like the distraction.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano