16 replies to this topic

[soporific]

A progress bar is supposed to tell the user how much time is remaining but the way its implemented when performing an analysis in CCleaner, the progress bar gets to the end and then starts again. The user has no idea how many times this is going to happen, so in effect, the 'progress' bars as they are in CCleaner right now are actually mirages ... you can see progress bars, but its not telling you the progress !!!

This is really the only thing wrong with this wonderful program, i just thought i'd point out the obvious-to-me-but-it-seems-no-one-else ...

So, just in case i'm not being clear, i would love to know how long the analysis is going to take in terms of a rough percentage of how much its got thru at any point. ie what progress bars are supposed to tell you. If this is not possible, then please please please scrap the progress bars and just put a 'please wait' message. At least there won't be any more mirages to get annoyed at.

Thanks for listening and thanks again for this very very useful program.

[Andavari]

The progress bar is for the showing that CCleaner is actively removing junk files or scanning the registry, to my understanding it's to let you know the program is working and isn't just sitting there doing nothing.

Similarly many antivirus/antispyware software don't reveal how long a scan will take.

[Caldor]

I agree with the OP - its bad UI design to have a progress bar actually be a status indicator not a progress bar

[Andavari]

Caldor, on Oct 15 2007, 02:30 AM, said:

I agree with the OP - its bad UI design to have a progress bar actually be a status indicator not a progress bar

Oh the little things to complain about when CCleaner isn't even opened for that long of a time to remove junk.

[ishan_rulz]

is it possible to add the percentage completed thing ? .. like 10% 20% .. 100% ? i'm AVs and ASs do reveasl that ..
cuz my progress/indicator bar keeps re-running for atleast 2 minutes ... and it feels as if the scan has some kinda bug .. and would never stop

[Dragoneer]

Believe it or not, I actually like the present configuration for the "progress bar." I like this better because each time it starts over I know that the program is working and that there is a quite a bit of crap left to clean and the program isn't locking-up. For example, when I install it on a friend's computer that's a virgin to CCleaner, it takes quite a bit of time to finish because there's so much crap on it, but I know it's working. I wouldn't feel as comfortable if it were a progress bar instead of a staus bar as indicated by Caldor). The reason is that I hate when a progress bar doesn't move for quite some time because it's working on something, ie, malware scanner, because you're not sure if the program malfuntioned.
I guess the only way to truly make everyone happy would be to show the files it's working through. However, sometimes even that isn't good enough because plenty of times when something is being scanned it will stop on a particular file and stay there for several mins. Life is tough sometimes.

[brain75]

As a programmer I can help defend the code writer, and both request the feature and request it NOT be implimented.

Programattically it is almost impossible to ballpark file i/o time + registry i/o time + .... and then make your progress bar behave realistically (progress bars that show nothing but file work ok, you mix file and memory and the progress bar jumps and stalls).

That said, I like to have an idea if I have 5 minutes left or 5 hours - so I want a real working progress bar.

Cost / benefit wise I prefer to have a tiny clean sharp exe that does the job with no bloat - progress bars almost always bloat the code to ridiculous levels.

So what's my ultimate input. I say leave a true progress out, dump the existing progress bar, and add a text field with say "delete file progress 5%" "delete registry progress 30%" and update the text as appropriate. This is more usefull than the duh progress bar you have now, and less bloaty than any other graphical option. Sure it's less pretty, but we are here for something that does a job good and clean not all pretty and half working. (sorry for the blunt, but we are here cause this is the best program, not junk code).

[mushu13]

I was thinking just making the progress bar show the % of the list completed. Like if there are 100 entries checked, then after every entry the % goes up by one.
But then if there is a lot to delete in one entry then it is prone to appearing as a freeze up.

So I have decided to suggest scrapping the progress bar, in favor of some sort of status indicator (rotating timer, spinning wheel, blinking dots) and a text field showing % of the list completed.

[ishan_rulz]

mushu13, on Oct 31 2007, 03:59 AM, said:

I was thinking just making the progress bar show the % of the list completed. Like if there are 100 entries checked, then after every entry the % goes up by one.
But then if there is a lot to delete in one entry then it is prone to appearing as a freeze up.

So I have decided to suggest scrapping the progress bar, in favor of some sort of status indicator (rotating timer, spinning wheel, blinking dots) and a text field showing % of the list completed.

like i have said above ..

[FreeIsGood]

soporific, on Oct 14 2007, 06:01 AM, said:

A progress bar is supposed to tell the user how much time is remaining but the way its implemented when performing an analysis in CCleaner, the progress bar gets to the end and then starts again. The user has no idea how many times this is going to happen, so in effect, the 'progress' bars as they are in CCleaner right now are actually mirages ... you can see progress bars, but its not telling you the progress !!!

This is really the only thing wrong with this wonderful program, i just thought i'd point out the obvious-to-me-but-it-seems-no-one-else ...

So, just in case i'm not being clear, i would love to know how long the analysis is going to take in terms of a rough percentage of how much its got thru at any point. ie what progress bars are supposed to tell you. If this is not possible, then please please please scrap the progress bars and just put a 'please wait' message. At least there won't be any more mirages to get annoyed at.

Thanks for listening and thanks again for this very very useful program.

I also felt an 100% progress bar should be implemented like when scanning the registry. I was doing some major repair for a family friend and i couldn't tell if the system was hanging or working. Her computer was slow compare to today's standard which made it really difficult. Maybe a rough time estimate?

[brain75]

calculating percentage versus calculating time is a 10x harder code implimentation - to throw out percent you just do that, before you start you know you have 107,000 items to handle, increment the % every 107 items. To calculate "time" and have it behave realistically you have to do 1% of the file i/o (call that A), 1% of the memory i/o (call that and then ballpark the time (100 * [A+B] ) - way to much bloat code for what little it accomplishes (think about this becoming a 3 meg executable just to time estimate correctly. again I'll defend coding this feature and not coding it. Anybody do the "1 hour" windows 95 install on a modern pc - it takes like 13 minutes. or even the ~32 minute win 98se install - it ticks off a minute every 20 seconds. time is a real tough thing to do right. KISS - keep it simple s***** - text field with however many items is appropriate, update it as needed. a smart user looks at his watch, notices it took 3 minutes for the first 10%, then leaves on a soda break for 27 minutes. (and yes, I was cleaning an old dog machine and that first clean removed 501Megs, and took 30 minutes)... unfortunately with the current non-progress bar I had to just look back at it every 10 minutes and wonder if the old dog had froze.

All that said - I still want to give kudos out the coders - this is really the only feature that is poorly implemented, and as far as my other posts in other areas go, you can't dog a coder for not adding a feature, just screwin one up

Thanks programmers and programmets

[brain75]

Been a while and no input added here from the coders - what's the future of this request oh programmers. Any word from on high?

[Panarchy]

Hmm... how about both?

Or what is currently being done (the current status bar) and a percentage, saying how far it is complete.

Panarchy

[JasonDS]

There's no use for a better progress bar, .. it would only slow it down, performance is more important than visual effects in a computer repair application.

[Nilt]

JasonDS, on Nov 14 2007, 02:28 PM, said:

There's no use for a better progress bar, .. it would only slow it down, performance is more important than visual effects in a computer repair application.

I tend to agree with this but, at the same time, would prefer to not have clients to whom I recommend CCleaner confused. Why not have a time elapsed timer instead? That would allow users to see that the app isn't frozen while also not being bloated. I'm not a programmer but I know Memtest86's "wall time" will freeze up when it does and that app is quite small.

[JCarias]

brain75, on Oct 30 2007, 07:18 PM, said:

As a programmer I can help defend the code writer, and both request the feature and request it NOT be implimented.

Programattically it is almost impossible to ballpark file i/o time + registry i/o time + .... and then make your progress bar behave realistically (progress bars that show nothing but file work ok, you mix file and memory and the progress bar jumps and stalls).

That said, I like to have an idea if I have 5 minutes left or 5 hours - so I want a real working progress bar.

Cost / benefit wise I prefer to have a tiny clean sharp exe that does the job with no bloat - progress bars almost always bloat the code to ridiculous levels.

So what's my ultimate input. I say leave a true progress out, dump the existing progress bar, and add a text field with say "delete file progress 5%" "delete registry progress 30%" and update the text as appropriate. This is more usefull than the duh progress bar you have now, and less bloaty than any other graphical option. Sure it's less pretty, but we are here for something that does a job good and clean not all pretty and half working. (sorry for the blunt, but we are here cause this is the best program, not junk code).

Hello there,

Partially I agree with Brain75 when he sais that it is quite impossible the implement an accurate progress bar. Never the less, I also agree with those how think that this is not very helpful.

So my suggestion is that CCleaner should inform the user about what is really happening during the cleaning process. By this I don't mean anything specially hard to make. For example you could use the existing control (a textbox, I supose) to keep printing the actual status. Something like this:

[indent] - Cleaning started on 2007-01-03 at 10:29 PM

[2007-01-03 10:29:41 ] Temporary Internet files: Done
[2007-01-03 10:29:41 ] Cookies: Working...[/indent]

And so on...

Best regards,

[davey]

HI GUYS,
The only problem is everything is done in one pass and I would assume it would be very inaccurate
as regards a percentage of work remaining when secure delete and also the sorting that is involved.
Not to mention the requests being made for free disk space security cleaning etc.
For some strange reason I think it should be left up to the development team.
Regards,
davey