[whatwg] Submission progress

[Afternoon]

On 7 Nov 2004, at 18:59, Jim Ley wrote:

> No, the browser window should not be locked, and no popup windows
> should be used, certainly not by specification.  Form submissions have
> never been modal in HTML, and there's no reason why this should change
> now, users need the ability to cancel submissions, and by the simple
> mechanism of navigating somewhere else, not clicking cancel on a
> pointless dialog.
>
> Equally, the upload is only a component of the time taken to perform a
> post, with a countdown, the user will expect immediate response, even
> if the server is going to spend a number of minutes processing the
> data.

The browser could sidestep this problem by displaying an upload 
complete message. Applications which spend a great deal of time 
processing in this way should notify the user in advance, again so they 
do not give up before a response is sent.

> No they wouldn't, the modal window would be doing it, in any case rich
> applications like this don't use single submission queues, but have
> the submission going on in the background (by submitting a new frame,
> with the active frame available immediately for normal use)

Using a frames to submit in the background is a solution which tries to 
work around browser deficiencies. My understanding is that this working 
group is about developing "ideal" solutions from the ground up. Though 
I may have misunderstood WHAT WG's intentions.

> Popups annoy users.

Sorry, popup was the wrong word, I meant dialog.

These are valid complaints, but you've missed the broader point. 
Uploads take time, whether you hide it using a frame or not, and users 
need feedback during this period, ideally giving an ETA or similar 
updating metric. If not, a user will often assume that the application 
is broken and go away after as little as 10 seconds.

Ben


((Ben Godfrey) (Software) (see "http://www.cohack.com/?src=eval"))