Bug 139328

Summary: Akregator pops up feed fetch dialogs -- I do not WANT them!
Product: [Applications] kdepim Reporter: Dylan Griffiths <dylang>
Component: libkdepimAssignee: kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED    
Severity: normal    
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Ubuntu   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Dylan Griffiths 2006-12-28 19:03:52 UTC
Version:           1.2.5 (using KDE KDE 3.5.5)
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages
OS:                Linux

While I am reading articles in Akregator, little dialogs will popup out of my status bar of the form:

[Feed name] ======100%====== [X]

They can quickly consume a significant portion of my screen real estate, as they stack up on top of each other.  I have turned off all preferences relating to these to turn them off.  I have tried toggling my status bar on and off.  Despite this, they continue to pop up and be a nuisance!  Why on Earth would anyone even want a notification that quickly chews up over half of the size of the article window?   It's a bad design.

I would've downloaded the source code and fixed it myself, but the sf.net site for the project only lists the out of date 1.0.2 code and DOES NOT link to wherever the real development of the code is occurring.  Please go to 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/akregator/

and disable/replace the website with something that is not misleading and useless.
Comment 1 Bram Schoenmakers 2006-12-28 19:10:27 UTC
Already thought of clicking the little arrow next to the progress bar in the status bar?
Comment 2 Dylan Griffiths 2006-12-28 19:30:14 UTC
Yea, and it's not very useful because it comes up for less time than I have to get over there and click it in most cases (broadband access, 5-10Mbps downstream).  There should be a real preference for this, not just a tiny arrow in the status bar.  Additionally, when the status bar is disabled, it should not come up.
Comment 3 Frank Osterfeld 2007-01-12 16:09:55 UTC
The progress items are disabled by default, so you must have hit the arrow button to enable it. If you were able to enable it, it should be also possible to disable it. I don't see a reason for another config option.
Comment 4 deleted_email_KsJQa 2007-01-12 17:26:02 UTC
>
> The progress items are disabled by default, so you must have hit
> the arrow button to enable it. If you were able to enable it, it
> should be also possible to disable it. I don't see a reason for
> another config option. 
>


If he didn't find how, this is a usability problem. I sometimes have some problems to click on this arrow, before it is deactivated and hidden, too... (and I'm not even talking about reading the tooltip -and I'm not even talking about accessibility to users who cannot move their mouse quickly (or use a mouse at all)). Why hide it, when no other information is otherwise shown in place of it? (though it would still be a usability problem, in there was something else).

The arrow should not disappear, and should not be disabled, when all tasks have been completed. We should be able to configure this at all times. An option might be added to the "View" menu (it would be redundant, but a more centralized configuration is always good, when options are also scattered in the window, where the actions they control take place).

The option in the view menu (and maybe it could also be added as a right-click menu, when clicking on the arrow and the status bar part, at its right), should permit to set if we want to show the details or not, and if we want to keep completed tasks for, like, 0 second (remove as soon as completed -for users who only care about what's being currently done), 1 second (for users who want to quickly check when a specific task has been completed), 10 seconds (same, but for people who need more time, or who have a lot of tasks being done at the same time), and something like 30 minutes (for people who want to have some logs of what was checked, recently -though, in this case, the date and time should be added to the task entry... maybe in a second popup, though it's not that clean).

Maybe there should also be something to keep all tasks indefinitely, while the cursor is hovering above the task list... (you know, like in Amarok, when the timeout to hide errors, is paused, when the mouse is hovering above the popup -though it's not exactly the same system, because errors in Amarok are showed above the previous ones, which is not as good as a list like in Kontact).


Keeping the arrow and permit to configure the display of the task list is important (making things disappear without reason, and requiring users to do things quickly, is an important usability problem). The two other ideas should be noted, but it probably won't be used by more than a few people, so it should be pretty low priority (except if someone has the time to do it).
Comment 5 Frank Osterfeld 2007-01-12 17:47:01 UTC
A menu entry would be possible.
I also noticed that the arrow icon is buggy -- is sometimes disappears, maybe related to a session management bug. Reopening.
Comment 6 Dylan Griffiths 2007-01-12 17:55:13 UTC
Thanks.  I'm not sure which update added this feature to Akregator, but I don't recall activating it on purpose, and (as has been mentioned) the arrow hasn't been consistently there, making it difficult to figure out what to do.

If you want to enable verbose feedback, perhaps an internal log could be viewed via a subdialog, or the status bar could contain static controls.
Comment 7 Teemu Rytilahti 2008-01-27 14:14:15 UTC
Moving to Kontact, as this is a widget from kdepimlibs and I saw no entry for it here in BKO.
Comment 8 Denis Kurz 2016-09-24 21:00:37 UTC
This bug has only been reported for versions before 4.14, which have been unsupported for at least two years now. Can anyone tell if this bug still present?

If noone confirms this bug for a Framework-based version of kdepim (version 5.0 or later, as part of KDE Applications 15.08 or later), it gets closed in about three months.
Comment 9 Denis Kurz 2017-01-07 22:33:46 UTC
Just as announced in my last comment, I close this bug. If you encounter it again in a recent version (at least 5.0 aka 15.08), please open a new one unless it already exists. Thank you for all your input.