Appropriate clues and cues

T

timothytoe

I'm always irritated by web pages that break my expectations. I'd like
my own web page to conform to expectations as much as possible. One
problem I'm having is that when the user comes to my page it's quickly
loaded and it says "Done" and the "Stop Loading This Page" button
ghosts while I'm doing Ajax loading. If I had a way to turn that
message to "Loading" or turn that Stop Sign back on and intercept it,
I could easily to what the user wanted--stop loading the page.

I've seen this quirk in other Ajax applications, but I haven't seen
much discussion about it. I have seen a lot of discussion about
imperatives to not break the Forward and the Back button.

What I do now is turn on the Wait cursor. Hopefully that's enough to
give the user the message that loading is still happening. I also have
a progress bar. In other web pages, I've seen blank areas that display
the common "rotating dot" busy signal until the content comes in.

I'm assuming that no modern browser will allow me to override that
Done message and turn that Stop Button back on. Am I correct in making
that assumption?
 
P

Peter Michaux

I'm always irritated by web pages that break my expectations. I'd like
my own web page to conform to expectations as much as possible. One
problem I'm having is that when the user comes to my page it's quickly
loaded and it says "Done" and the "Stop Loading This Page" button
ghosts while I'm doing Ajax loading. If I had a way to turn that
message to "Loading" or turn that Stop Sign back on and intercept it,
I could easily to what the user wanted--stop loading the page.

It seems the usual solution is to use a DHTML throbber to indicate
more content is loading or in general something is happening.

I have never tried it but I believe you can use a hidden iframe to
turn the browser's loading state on. The browser's "stop loading"
button would be clickable but do you really want it clickable in that
situation?

Peter
 
T

timothytoe

It seems the usual solution is to use a DHTML throbber to indicate
more content is loading or in general something is happening.

I have never tried it but I believe you can use a hidden iframe to
turn the browser's loading state on. The browser's "stop loading"
button would be clickable but do you really want it clickable in that
situation?

Peter

That's a good question. I've wanted to stop it a few times myself, but
I run it about 200 times a day, so maybe I'm a bad judge. I wonder how
often people hit STOP now in the days of fast computers and broadband.

Seems like we've left the days when there was a clear division between
"loading" and "done." I want to do all the work I can to make the
state of the app as clear as possible, but I don't want to do any more
than what's necessary.

If people accept the "throbber," maybe I should be satisfied with that.
 

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