Progress bar (again)

[cstern]

I have just joined the beta test and fired up the cirrus software to do a folder compare and sync.

I have noticed this has been reported before in this forum, but it was some time ago and apparently it hasn't changed.

I need to syncronize files of 1, 2, 3 or even 4 gigabytes in size. In BC2 you would see both a file progress bar and a completion progress bar. The first one is now gone. For small files this is not a problem, but for files which take several minutes to copy e.g. from an external disk to the HDD it is annoying not to be able to tell if the copying is in progress or if the program stalled.

In fact, I did think that the program crashed when I tried to move some files, (one of which was 4.2GB) and I tried to cancel the move process after several minutes of no apparent action on the screen.
Then, the program seemed locked up for some additional minutes (the move of the big file was in fact completed).

I would suggest that either the file copy/move progress bar comes back in some form, or that e.g. for files over 100 MB (or whatever) the completion progress bar is replaced while that particular file is copied with a file progress bar (could be in another color, for instance) and then back to the completion progress bar afterwards (This solution does have some drawbacks if there are a lot of big files to be copied, since you will lose the overview)

[Michael Bulgrien]

Part of the problem is that Cirrus now supports copying/moving more than one file at a time (multi-threaded file functions). BC2 did not. So, in Cirrus, do you display multiple progress bars (one for each concurrent file copy)? If not, how do you determine what to use to drive the second progress bar? Do you only display the progress bar for the file being displayed in the status line?

How did you attempt to cancel the copy? Using the cancel button to the left of the progress bar? Or the cancel button on the toolbar? I thought I could use either one in the past, but have since learned that the top one only cancels active background scans and only the bottom one cancels a file move/copy operation.

When Cirrus seemed to lock up, I wonder if it might have been in the middle of a post-copy validation compare? How much memory (physical and virtual) do you have in your system? Is it possible that your system ran out of system resources? Just a thought...

[cstern]

Part of the problem is that Cirrus now supports copying/moving more than one file at a time (multi-threaded file functions). BC2 did not. So, in Cirrus, do you display multiple progress bars (one for each concurrent file copy)? If not, how do you determine what to use to drive the second progress bar? Do you only display the progress bar for the file being displayed in the status line?

I only saw one progress bar - I was copying something like 10 files. The progress bar is for the overall copy process.

How did you attempt to cancel the copy? Using the cancel button to the left of the progress bar? Or the cancel button on the toolbar? I thought I could use either one in the past, but have since learned that the top one only cancels active background scans and only the bottom one cancels a file move/copy operation.

I don't see the cancel button on the toolbar. I simply hit the X on the top blue bar, as far as I remember. The program kept running until it was done copying the big file, then shut down. It wasn't crashed - it only looked like that.

When Cirrus seemed to lock up, I wonder if it might have been in the middle of a post-copy validation compare? How much memory (physical and virtual) do you have in your system? Is it possible that your system ran out of system resources? Just a thought...

Yes, I am pretty sure cirrus was busy copying, and the system was OK. That is not my complaint - the problem is that you can't see that something is going on. Of course, after trying it once, I now know that I just have to be patient. But I still think it would improve the user experience to include a file copy progress bar.

BTW, I have a Dell Core 2 Duo system 2.66 GHz with 2 GB phys RAM.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I only saw one progress bar - I was copying something like 10 files. The progress bar is for the overall copy process.

Yes, there is only one progress bar. I was suggesting that it will not be as easy to implement file-specific progress bars in BC3 as it was in BC2 since BC3 supports multiple file copies simultaneously, so one needs to consider the pros/cons of different options.

Would you prefer to see more than two progress bars (one for each file being copied) or just two like you had in BC2? If just two, how would you expect that new progress bar to work since there might be more than one file being copied at any one time.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I don't see the cancel button on the toolbar. I simply hit the X on the top blue bar

The red (x) next to the progress bar should be used if you wish to cancel a copy/move function.



I expect Cirrus attempts to complete the current operation if you don't cancel it before closing Cirrus with the [X] on the blue Title bar.

[cstern]

I understand your question - and frankly, I don't know. I was not aware of this enhanced functionality. I think that one progress bar for each file given e.g. 10 simultaneous copy functions would be out of the question.

Hmm, perhaps just a single progress bar showing bytes remaining to be copied/moved or a percent complete (the main thing for me is to realize that something is going on and the program hasn't stopped.

[cstern]

The red (x) next to the progress bar should be used if you wish to cancel a copy/move function.



I expect Cirrus attempts to complete the current operation if you don't cancel it before closing Cirrus with the [X] on the blue Title bar.

Thats the good thing about beta testing Ignorant users pressing the wrong buttons. You are right of course, I just thought the program stopped and tried to quit it.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Hmm, perhaps just a single progress bar showing bytes remaining to be copied/moved or a percent complete (the main thing for me is to realize that something is going on and the program hasn't stopped.

The progress bar already has a bytes copied indicator:



BTW - I too miss the file-specific progress bar, but am not sure I want progress bars for more than one file at a time...unless the Scooter team gives us the option to pause and resume file copies. Then it would make sense to show controls for each file being copied - A user could choose to pause or cancel one file copy to allow the others to complete first...

[cstern]

Ah, I see. But when you do a MOVE the counter doesn't count up. It stays at 0 until the whole file has been moved. This is now a Bug report! When the function is COPY the counter works as you describe.

Edit: I just realized that the progress bar actually moves in the COPY process, as the copying is proceeding, while the MOVE process oly update the progress bar after each complete file move.

Build 445

I can perfectly live with the behavior for the copy function if it also works in the move function.

BTW, what do you use to make screen dumps and annotation boxes?

[Michael Bulgrien]

I use a tool recommended by the Scooter team:

www.JingProject.com

Great tool. You can capture still shots or flash videos of your interaction with an application. You can upload the capture to a screencast server, your own FTP site, or a local folder on your hard drive.

[cstern]

Just downloaded it - looks great and easy to use, too. Thanks.

Claus

[Aaron]

I, too, use Jing quite a bit for my support screenshots. The only thing I've noticed is it can eat a lot of ram if you are not careful.

As for the no progress update, I can see that, too. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

[Zoë]

Claus,

Thanks. There are actually two related bugs here: (1) Cirrus isn't updating the progress during a move, and (2) since it isn't doing 1, it also isn't checking for cancel requests. Once those are fixed it will update the progress just like copy, and closing the program will cancel any running operations as quickly as it can.