In WinForms you could set a progress bar to loop endlessly to indicate that you don't know how long it will take. How would I do that in WPF?
+1
A:
I personally like the approach Visual Studio 2010 takes. They use an animation of a small, looping series of dots (with varying intensity). They just animate the dots circling in the center of the window in question.
In WPF, this is trivial - just animate a rotation of a small drawing of a circle of dots with the opacity set correctly up front.
I find it very intuitive, small, and unintrusive.
Reed Copsey
2009-11-21 01:30:25
That can look nicers, but is way too much to learn for what needs to be quick and easy page.
Jonathan Allen
2009-11-21 01:44:28
In Windows Forms, it was tough to implement. In WPF, it's very, very easy (especially if you're using Blend).
Reed Copsey
2009-11-21 02:10:23
A:
Is a progress bar the right widget for this? You are unable to indicate a % complete, since you "don't know how long it will take". Maybe an animation of some sort (like the Windows files-disappearing-into-thin-air-while-deleting effect) to show that activity is still going on would be better. But a "progress" bar that simply resets to zero because there is still more work to do just looks dumb to me.
Paul McGuire
2009-11-21 01:30:49
It's not the same effect as constantly filling from 0 to 100 and then resetting. Progress bars in indeterminate mode are more like a small block of color constantly moving along the bar (or, in Vista and later, a solid yellow bar with a moving highlight). It's not the greatest animation, but it's fairly standard in Windows and is not easily confused with the logout process from Office Space.
ChrisV
2009-11-21 01:58:26