This, yes. Also, if you're processing discrete items in any measurable way (downloading kilobytes, ingesting database rows, querying servers...) that takes longer than one second flat, display that to users. "Processing record 1/1,000,000... Processing record 2/1,000,000..." gives a positive sense of progress. Even if you don't actually know the final total in advance, you should still display whatever you've got.
As a bonus, this can occasionally be useful for bug squashing. "I've been waiting for hours and it's only up to row 5681" when you know for a fact that there's <2000 rows is a lot more informative than "My report won't finish."
A few of the default Debian packages give feedback messages like "This could take a long time..."
Most of them used to take a long time, but hardware has caught up. SSH key generation, locale installation. Instead, it's a warning that briefly appears on modern systems, but is visible for quite a while on, say, a Raspberry Pi.
I designed and maintain a report-generating component and my system does the same thing. (Plus it is helpful as users can tell me where in the process it failed/hung) It doesn't matter how long each message sits on the screen, as long as it changes every so often. Animated, infinite progress bars also help if you don't/can't estimate ETA
Can it not say "$X items processed..." or have a spinner that updates it's frame at certain intervals? It doesn't have to be a percent, just proof of progress. I had no trouble adding an accurate "$X rows of csv processed" in a laravel (PHP) + VueJS app.
I know this won't work everywhere, but if you know how much time the task generally takes, your progress bar can just be a timer for that duration. Still more informative than fake messages.
This, yes. Also, if you're processing discrete items in any measurable way (downloading kilobytes, ingesting database rows, querying servers...) that takes longer than one second flat, display that to users. "Processing record 1/1,000,000... Processing record 2/1,000,000..." gives a positive sense of progress. Even if you don't actually know the final total in advance, you should still display whatever you've got.
As a bonus, this can occasionally be useful for bug squashing. "I've been waiting for hours and it's only up to row 5681" when you know for a fact that there's <2000 rows is a lot more informative than "My report won't finish."
Most of those steps will go immediately, and one of them has the same problem the original issue had: it’ll sit on it for ages...
A few of the default Debian packages give feedback messages like "This could take a long time..."
Most of them used to take a long time, but hardware has caught up. SSH key generation, locale installation. Instead, it's a warning that briefly appears on modern systems, but is visible for quite a while on, say, a Raspberry Pi.
I designed and maintain a report-generating component and my system does the same thing. (Plus it is helpful as users can tell me where in the process it failed/hung) It doesn't matter how long each message sits on the screen, as long as it changes every so often. Animated, infinite progress bars also help if you don't/can't estimate ETA
A cycling animation only tells you that your computer/UI isn't dead, it doesn't tell you that the underlying task isn't frozen.
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Can it not say "$X items processed..." or have a spinner that updates it's frame at certain intervals? It doesn't have to be a percent, just proof of progress. I had no trouble adding an accurate "$X rows of csv processed" in a laravel (PHP) + VueJS app.
I know this won't work everywhere, but if you know how much time the task generally takes, your progress bar can just be a timer for that duration. Still more informative than fake messages.