Feature request: Server connection status message
Dear Dillo developers, since the bug tracker is down, please let me propose a new feature over the mailing list.
From time to time I am in places with a very bad internet connection. when I surf with Dillo and click on a link it appears that nothing happens, except that the link color has changed. Then I'm usually wondering what's going on now. Did I really click the link? Has the server has been found? Is the server responding very slowly? Does Dillo receive data from it? Or is my connection dead?
To avoid this confusion, I'd like to propose a status message which is displayed in the status bar at the very bottom of the Dillo window. The message could say what is currently been done. For example, Firefox says "Looking up www.example.de" "Waiting for www.example.de" "Transferring data from www.example.de" Many thanks and best regards, Alex
Hello Alexander, 'Transferring ...' is already covered in the top right corner, where there is a number of kilobytes that goes grey when transferring finishes. I wonder if the other things that you want could be retrofitted into that box. I wonder if the set should include: - Parse - parsing the URL and preparing to act on it - DNS - waiting for the DNS - CONN - waiting for a TCP connection to complete - SEC - waiting for a security handshake Regards, James. On 08/03/2016, Alexander Voigt <Hole.destructor at gmx.de> wrote:
Dear Dillo developers,
since the bug tracker is down, please let me propose a new feature over the mailing list.
From time to time I am in places with a very bad internet connection. when I surf with Dillo and click on a link it appears that nothing happens, except that the link color has changed. Then I'm usually wondering what's going on now. Did I really click the link? Has the server has been found? Is the server responding very slowly? Does Dillo receive data from it? Or is my connection dead?
To avoid this confusion, I'd like to propose a status message which is displayed in the status bar at the very bottom of the Dillo window. The message could say what is currently been done. For example, Firefox says
"Looking up www.example.de" "Waiting for www.example.de" "Transferring data from www.example.de"
Many thanks and best regards, Alex
_______________________________________________ Dillo-dev mailing list Dillo-dev at dillo.org http://lists.dillo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dillo-dev
Hi James,
'Transferring ...' is already covered in the top right corner, where there is a number of kilobytes that goes grey when transferring finishes.
ah, you are right, I was not aware of that.
I wonder if the other things that you want could be retrofitted into that box. I wonder if the set should include: - Parse - parsing the URL and preparing to act on it - DNS - waiting for the DNS - CONN - waiting for a TCP connection to complete - SEC - waiting for a security handshake
Yes, that would be great! It would make even more transparent what Dillo does in the background. Best regards, Alex On Tue, Mar 08, 2016 at 10:53:49PM +1300, James C wrote:
Hello Alexander,
'Transferring ...' is already covered in the top right corner, where there is a number of kilobytes that goes grey when transferring finishes.
I wonder if the other things that you want could be retrofitted into that box. I wonder if the set should include: - Parse - parsing the URL and preparing to act on it - DNS - waiting for the DNS - CONN - waiting for a TCP connection to complete - SEC - waiting for a security handshake
Regards, James.
On 08/03/2016, Alexander Voigt <Hole.destructor at gmx.de> wrote:
Dear Dillo developers,
since the bug tracker is down, please let me propose a new feature over the mailing list.
From time to time I am in places with a very bad internet connection. when I surf with Dillo and click on a link it appears that nothing happens, except that the link color has changed. Then I'm usually wondering what's going on now. Did I really click the link? Has the server has been found? Is the server responding very slowly? Does Dillo receive data from it? Or is my connection dead?
To avoid this confusion, I'd like to propose a status message which is displayed in the status bar at the very bottom of the Dillo window. The message could say what is currently been done. For example, Firefox says
"Looking up www.example.de" "Waiting for www.example.de" "Transferring data from www.example.de"
Many thanks and best regards, Alex
_______________________________________________ Dillo-dev mailing list Dillo-dev at dillo.org http://lists.dillo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dillo-dev
Hello Dillo maintainer people, If I set out to write this patch, the first version will be painful. Do you want the change? Do you want to hand-hold me through writing it? Regards, James.
On 9/03/2016, at 4:09 am, Alexander Voigt <Hole.destructor at gmx.de> wrote:
Hi James,
'Transferring ...' is already covered in the top right corner, where there is a number of kilobytes that goes grey when transferring finishes.
ah, you are right, I was not aware of that.
I wonder if the other things that you want could be retrofitted into that box. I wonder if the set should include: - Parse - parsing the URL and preparing to act on it - DNS - waiting for the DNS - CONN - waiting for a TCP connection to complete - SEC - waiting for a security handshake
Yes, that would be great! It would make even more transparent what Dillo does in the background.
Best regards, Alex
On Tue, Mar 08, 2016 at 10:53:49PM +1300, James C wrote: Hello Alexander,
'Transferring ...' is already covered in the top right corner, where there is a number of kilobytes that goes grey when transferring finishes.
I wonder if the other things that you want could be retrofitted into that box. I wonder if the set should include: - Parse - parsing the URL and preparing to act on it - DNS - waiting for the DNS - CONN - waiting for a TCP connection to complete - SEC - waiting for a security handshake
Regards, James.
On 08/03/2016, Alexander Voigt <Hole.destructor at gmx.de> wrote: Dear Dillo developers,
since the bug tracker is down, please let me propose a new feature over the mailing list.
From time to time I am in places with a very bad internet connection. when I surf with Dillo and click on a link it appears that nothing happens, except that the link color has changed. Then I'm usually wondering what's going on now. Did I really click the link? Has the server has been found? Is the server responding very slowly? Does Dillo receive data from it? Or is my connection dead?
To avoid this confusion, I'd like to propose a status message which is displayed in the status bar at the very bottom of the Dillo window. The message could say what is currently been done. For example, Firefox says
"Looking up www.example.de" "Waiting for www.example.de" "Transferring data from www.example.de"
Many thanks and best regards, Alex
_______________________________________________ Dillo-dev mailing list Dillo-dev at dillo.org http://lists.dillo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dillo-dev
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 08:39:02PM +1300, James C wrote:
Hello Dillo maintainer people,
If I set out to write this patch, the first version will be painful. Do you want the change? Do you want to hand-hold me through writing it?
We do have: MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "Contacting host..."); MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "DNS resolving %s", hostname); for the status bar, although unfortunately they are wiped out if you move the pointer over a link. I've thought it would be nice if such status messages could reappear when no longer showing a link...
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 04:12:05AM +0000, eocene wrote:
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 08:39:02PM +1300, James C wrote:
Hello Dillo maintainer people,
If I set out to write this patch, the first version will be painful. Do you want the change? Do you want to hand-hold me through writing it?
We do have:
MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "Contacting host..."); MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "DNS resolving %s", hostname);
for the status bar, although unfortunately they are wiped out if you move the pointer over a link. I've thought it would be nice if such status messages could reappear when no longer showing a link...
Yep. It was a bit funny to see a feature request for some status messages which were already there (among others). The reasons for it, though, are completely understandable (IMO). Usually those messages go very fast and get wiped out by cursor movement, so they miss the intended informative purpose. It was also very good to read a question before trying to develop a patch. Usually it's better to ask and have some feedback before coding [the attentive reader already got that the reuqested patch would make no difference]. ... but the problem is real! Years have taught me to try to find the root problem of what the patch tries to fix. In this case, it looks like the problem it that sometimes the user can't find out whether the page has been asked for or not (no visual clue feedback telling the difference). I've had the same problem at times (using ADSL). Thinking of it as I use dillo, I suspect that sometimes the servers are answering a "temporarily busy" HTTP message or just droping the connection. This is known to happen, as it was developed as a technique against bots and DDOS attacks, by using the fact that a web browser would try again (which dillo may not be doing for some cases). I've also noticed that sometimes I don't get images from a site and the reason is that the DNS can't resolve the name, but when asked again it does. This surely is part of the problem (at least for me). BTW, this is typical behaviour of a crowded DNS server. I'd go for kind of a colored led indicator in the status bar (not wiped by cursor movement {which displays the underlying URL}). that when hovered pops a hint text briefly explaining the status. For instance: red: Resolving server name orange: contacting host yellow: expecting answer green: data stream already flowing. white/off: done. That way it would be quite easy to tell at which stage lies the failure. Obviously this is for the main page only (not images, nor stylesheets, nor other resources). Now, I'd say the problem would be tackled once the underlying causes (as the ones described above, or a different one) are patched for. In which case the "status led indicator" would be very useful feedback, and would help to locate problems while browsing. Let's discuss this a bit before coding, we have a very good signal/noise ratio in dillo-dev! -- Cheers Jorge.-
Hello Jorge,
I'd go for kind of a colored led indicator in the status bar (not wiped by cursor movement {which displays the underlying URL}). that when hovered pops a hint text briefly explaining the status. For instance:
red: Resolving server name orange: contacting host yellow: expecting answer green: data stream already flowing. white/off: done.
That way it would be quite easy to tell at which stage lies the failure.
I think that would be very solution, because, as you said, the underlying URL would still be visible in the status bar.
Obviously this is for the main page only (not images, nor stylesheets, nor other resources).
That's a good point, actually. Wouldn't it make sense to display information about stylesheets, images etc. as well? Best regards, Alex On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 09:07:15AM -0300, Jorge Arellano Cid wrote:
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 04:12:05AM +0000, eocene wrote:
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 08:39:02PM +1300, James C wrote:
Hello Dillo maintainer people,
If I set out to write this patch, the first version will be painful. Do you want the change? Do you want to hand-hold me through writing it?
We do have:
MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "Contacting host..."); MSG_BW(S->web, 1, "DNS resolving %s", hostname);
for the status bar, although unfortunately they are wiped out if you move the pointer over a link. I've thought it would be nice if such status messages could reappear when no longer showing a link...
Yep.
It was a bit funny to see a feature request for some status messages which were already there (among others). The reasons for it, though, are completely understandable (IMO). Usually those messages go very fast and get wiped out by cursor movement, so they miss the intended informative purpose.
It was also very good to read a question before trying to develop a patch. Usually it's better to ask and have some feedback before coding [the attentive reader already got that the reuqested patch would make no difference].
... but the problem is real!
Years have taught me to try to find the root problem of what the patch tries to fix. In this case, it looks like the problem it that sometimes the user can't find out whether the page has been asked for or not (no visual clue feedback telling the difference). I've had the same problem at times (using ADSL). Thinking of it as I use dillo, I suspect that sometimes the servers are answering a "temporarily busy" HTTP message or just droping the connection. This is known to happen, as it was developed as a technique against bots and DDOS attacks, by using the fact that a web browser would try again (which dillo may not be doing for some cases). I've also noticed that sometimes I don't get images from a site and the reason is that the DNS can't resolve the name, but when asked again it does. This surely is part of the problem (at least for me). BTW, this is typical behaviour of a crowded DNS server.
I'd go for kind of a colored led indicator in the status bar (not wiped by cursor movement {which displays the underlying URL}). that when hovered pops a hint text briefly explaining the status. For instance:
red: Resolving server name orange: contacting host yellow: expecting answer green: data stream already flowing. white/off: done.
That way it would be quite easy to tell at which stage lies the failure. Obviously this is for the main page only (not images, nor stylesheets, nor other resources).
Now, I'd say the problem would be tackled once the underlying causes (as the ones described above, or a different one) are patched for. In which case the "status led indicator" would be very useful feedback, and would help to locate problems while browsing.
Let's discuss this a bit before coding, we have a very good signal/noise ratio in dillo-dev!
-- Cheers Jorge.-
_______________________________________________ Dillo-dev mailing list Dillo-dev at dillo.org http://lists.dillo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dillo-dev
participants (4)
-
eocene＠gmx.com -
Hole.destructor＠gmx.de -
james.from.wellington＠gmail.com -
jcid＠dillo.org