Disable event structure until in need

[Norbert_B]

As a very frequent user of different kinds of software, i have to confess that i'm always annoyed by software which disables interactivity without notifying me.

There are three common ways to notify the user about "something is going on":

a) Set cursor to "busy"

b) Disable certain controls

c) Include a "progress bar" in your UI or show a popup panel

As said, if none of the above is used to notify me as a user that the software is currently working on something hence not being able to react immediatly, i am most likely to look for alternatives from other vendors.

Some software even combine 2 of those options to increase the user experience (e.g. progress bar and cursor busy) showing the "urgency" of such methods!

just my 2 cents,

Norbert

[altenbach]

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@Norbert_B wrote:

As a very frequent user of different kinds of software, i have to confess that i'm always annoyed by software which disables interactivity without notifying me.

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This particular case is slightly different and the problem was mostly caused by poor program architecture, having an event structure hidden somewhere where it cannot react, and thus will queue up events until later in the code.

In this case there is no need to disable, changing cursors, or add a progress bars, etc. All the code needs to do is ignore certain mouse options by executing an empty case if the current program state has no need for these events.

(We could simply beep at the user if these event occur when they shouldn't, but that is again annoying in my book ;))

[Norbert_B]

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@altenbach wrote:

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@Norbert_B wrote:

As a very frequent user of different kinds of software, i have to confess that i'm always annoyed by software which disables interactivity without notifying me.

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This particular case is slightly different and the problem was mostly caused by poor program architecture,[...]

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I was talking about software in general as an answer to Paradigm1999's last question. And as you point out, Christian, missing notification for "activity" within the software is a clear indication for poor programming architecture or insufficient UI implementation.

So from my point of view, it is strongly suggested to either rethink the UI approach (architecture?) and try to rework the usablity stuff or to find a complete new approach.

Why am i insisting on this?

Because keeping the event structure "deep" within the architecture, so not "exposed like in the event based producer-consumer", will always lead to misunderstandings and weird situations. Implementing workarounds all the time is not viable.

So trying to keep that architecture is most likely going to drag a long-tail of support questions after it which are simply vaporized by choosing another, more appropriate architecture.

2 more cents 😉

Norbert

[Paradigm1999]

Hi Altenbach,

               I had done the mouse down event thanks to your guidance.

              I had one question for you and hope you can help to answer. I want to know what is the respond time for the user to click on the correct 2D pictures. Currently, I am using the Tick count (ms) once it enter the default case structure and another one after the mouse click event occurs. Then I minus off the 2 tick count to get the respond time.

             Is this the correct method? Is there other better way of doing this? Thanks a lot

[altenbach]

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@Paradigm1999 wrote:

Currently, I am using the Tick count (ms) once it enter the default case structure and another one after the mouse click event occurs. Then I minus off the 2 tick count to get the respond time.

             Is this the correct method? Is there other better way of doing this? Thanks a lot

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All events have an event terminal called "time". You can use that output instead of using a seperate "tick count" function.

(Show us your latest code form more detailed help.)

[Paradigm1999]

Hi Altenbach,

                  I tried to wire up the time inside my structure to a indicator and it shows a numeric number of 40435121 and something around this range. What is the time for this? How can we calculate the time from the event structure activated to click?

[altenbach]

It is the same as the tick count. you need to do the difference as you already described.