About improving "cancel" feature

[FelixCold]

Some similar suggestions have already been discussed here, but my case is slightly different, so I'll better start a new topic.

 

So that's how it all happened.

 

At some time after clicking "write" button I suddenly realized I'm not sure I've selected the right drive.

I had to write to an empty CD-R placed into one of the drives, while other was loaded with one of my bootable "live Linux" CD-RW (I was fighting penguins at that time - you know, they're so damned arrogant!), which of course wasn't intended to be rewritten anyhow.

There was no time to re-think again all the details like "maybe all normal programs should warn before rewriting (erasing) CD-RW discs instead of just doing this silently" or even "somewhere here in the ImgBurn window should be actual used device information, like LITE-ON etc. etc. or SAMSUNG etc. etc. - now which of them is which?" - when I caught myself having a potentional problem, buffer filling has already began & I had just a few seconds to do something.

The only thing that was able to be done in that situation was "immediately pushing a big red button".

I'm pretty sure I did it in time - at the first clicking moment buffer was filled by just a little over a half - not more than 3/4 (75%).

 

What?

What is this?

Oh, do I really want ... OK, I understand, thats needed in case I accidentally made a mistake ... well, YES, I really want to Cancel!

(second click)

Dialog box disappeared, but nothing more was obviously happening.

Hey, Mr. Niceguy (aka ImgBurn), are you doing something or what?

I'm in danger of loosing one of my "dear" penguins!

In case of Mr. Niceguy has been slightly dreaming, I clicked a big red button one more time.

 

What?

What is this now?

Oh, you're telling me "Please be patient, I heard you the first time!"

Wow, nice!

ImgBurn talks to me, even rants a little that I'm stupid - what a friendly program, I like it!

Well, Mr. Niceguy - sorry, sorry, I just wasn't sure you're working so hard on it because you know - you didn't show any signs of this hard work!

OK, I'll wait a little ...

 

Finished?

Ready now?

OK, lets check what's happening with my drives ... oh, seems like I've previously selected exactly the right one!

(at that moment I didn't realize yet that this will be the most annoying moment in all this story!)

Now when the suspected problem is checked, let's burn the CD!

E-e-eh ... but why the big "Write" button doesn't work?

Let's check all one more time ... this is OK, this is OK too, & this too ... hey, stop!

What's this - "Media not empty"?

How - not empty?

There's still the same disc in the drive that you were ready to write to before!

OK, to be sure let's try "eject-close" as if media has been replaced.

Still not empty?

OK, now to be completely sure, lets really replace the CD with another, new one.

Oh, now you can write at last?

Well, that's nice you're still working, but how about that previous CD?

(eject-replace-close)

Again not empty?

 

Wait, wait - are you trying to tell me that you've just made a coaster - the one & only real one through all the happy time of our friendship?

(previously there was one more coaster case - maybe I'll tell about it in other topic, cos it still isn't clear to me why it happened, but luckily that previous one was a CD-RW, so I just re-wrote it)

 

No, no no - don't even think about this!

What do you say?

Really?

A coaster has been made?

But how - I think I did all I could to avoid this, so how it could happen?

Ok, lets check a log file ...

(log files, log files, log files - I like ImgBurn!)

Oh, here it is:

 

I 16:41:33 Filling Buffer... (20MB)

I 16:41:54 Writing LeadIn...

I 16:41:58 Abort Request Acknowledged

 

So, if I got it right, these 4 damned seconds was enough to make a coaster from my brand new Verbatim CD-R?

That means, after I clicked a big red button, you were continuing to actually burn the CD, until I told you that I "really want to cancel" it?

You wrote some "0.00001 bytes" at that time which nevertheless has made that CD unusable?

And you can't resume it somehow, despite I want to write to exactly the same CD exactly the same image?

Oh, that's nice!

That's really nice!

Instead of going into "complete pause" state (no ANY irreversible actions to disc in the drive!) immediately after big red button has been pushed, you're giving me a choise of "Yes", "No" & "Pause" (what is the sense of requiring the "second" click to activate the last one?), while still doing your "hard work" of making coasters?

 

No such a big problem with that damned CD, which became a coaster (though other time it could be some "special" one, given to me by a friend - it's not so fun to make coasters in such case!) - I've already made many of them previously with other programs, but this time it was ImgBurn, so the stupid misunderstanding in such a simple situation - that made me so angry!

 

For being such a "wiseguy", it's costing you a medal!

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDdc_cPDluQ - about 6.30)

Edited December 31, 2007 by FelixCold

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It's 1 coaster on 1 discs that was totally avoidable. Hint for the day? Don't cancel a burn once it's started! If a disc needed erasing it would have prompted.

 

YOU quit the burn so this is nothing to do with ImgBurn, sorry but you'll just have to try and get on with life as best you can.

[lmao2k]

Meh too early in the morning....ImgBurn will warn you that you have a rw disc in the drive and ask do you want to continue to burn. This will not happen if you have ticked the "Don't Prompt..." option in the settings.

 

Once the drive is told to burn there is nothing to stop it writing the leadin and that is out of ImgBurn's control.

 

If thats not helped in anyway at all, well thats what happens when I answer half asleep!

[FelixCold]

Thank you for your reply, Big Boss!

 

It's 1 coaster on 1 discs that was totally avoidable. Hint for the day?

It could be avoided if just 1 of the 2 sides wouldn't fail - me or ImgBurn.

This time both of us failed & I'm not avoiding my fault, I just think that ImgBurn side could be improved too.

 

Don't cancel a burn once it's started!

Well, it's a very nice advice, but ... what "Cancel" button is for then?

 

If a disc needed erasing it would have prompted.

As I've said, in that case I had time just until buffer is filled - just a few seconds.

Now when looking to this from aside almost anyone can see as obvious what you're talking about, but then from inside this wasn't so easy.

 

YOU quit the burn so this is nothing to do with ImgBurn, sorry but you'll just have to try and get on with life as best you can.

The exact time when "I quit the burn" was determined not just by me, but by ImgBurn too.

I've hit the "Cancel" button BEFORE actual burn (irreversible action to disc surface) began & I was just expecting ImgBurn will react in the most "safe" way, but it didn't.

 

To be more precise, I'll quote some of my previous post as importance of these words could be missed in that long story:

 

Instead of going into "complete pause" state (no ANY irreversible actions to disc in the drive!) immediately after big red button has been pushed, you're giving me a choise of "Yes", "No" & "Pause" (what is the sense of requiring the "second" click to activate the last one?)

 

Thank you.

[avada]

It would be a good thing if burning wouldn't start when pressing cancel while filling the buffer. It makes sense. Sometimes a user might realize starting the process that he forgot something (like disc label, or setting the correct burning speed), or did something stupid (forgot to put all of the files for writing ).

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You're overcomplicating the cancel function.

 

All pressing the red button does is bring up the cancel window. I'm not going to start remembering/checking every single possible state that the program could be in when this button is pressed, that's just way OTT. (Remember that ImgBurn is multi-threaded and can be doing several things at once.)

 

If you can hit the red button and confirm you want to cancel before the buffer fills up, it will indeed cancel the burn before the actual writing starts.

 

I can (have) tweaked that so that when it's checking to see if the buffer is full yet, the program won't accept that it is (and hence move onto the actual burning) if the 'Cancel' window is open.

[volvofl10]

as an extra ,you could check "Test Mode" for every burn , this doesnt actually write anything to the disc, then when you've had an extra 8-10 minutes to think about things, uncheck it and burn it to disc

 

With any prog there has to be a certain amount of "user intervention" . I can see the point your trying to make , but as mentioned, once the laser starts working theres no going back................unless its in Test mode

[FelixCold]

You're overcomplicating the cancel function.

All pressing the red button does is bring up the cancel window.

But as you can understand, from an average user point of view the suggested thing of auto-switching into a pause state after "cancel" window is launched is rather simplifying than overcomplicating.

(no need to double-click!)

 

I can (have) tweaked that so that when it's checking to see if the buffer is full yet, the program won't accept that it is (and hence move onto the actual burning) if the 'Cancel' window is open.

Well, if this is the only or the easiest way of achieving that goal (of course you can better see possible methods) - then why not, generally it solves this part of the "coaster-making danger" problem!

 

Thank you, Big Boss!

[FelixCold]

as an extra ,you could check "Test Mode" for every burn , this doesnt actually write anything to the disc, then when you've had an extra 8-10 minutes to think about things, uncheck it and burn it to disc

 

Just checked again that log - I don't know why I didn't a test write first as I usually do - now I can't remember the exact details.

But if I've forgotten to check the right drive that time, there will be some cases when check "test mode" will be forgotten too.

Nobody is free from accidental mistakes & it could be great if ImgBurn could help avoid bad results of some of them.

 

... but as mentioned, once the laser starts working theres no going back................unless its in Test mode

This is clear & the most of my disappointment was caused by the fact that I gave the first "cancel" comand BEFORE the laser actually started to work!

[FelixCold]

... Sometimes a user might realize starting the process that he forgot something (like disc label, or setting the correct burning speed), or did something stupid (forgot to put all of the files for writing ).

 

Watch this attachment, from my collection of ImgBurn screenshots!

 

Wait, but ImgBurn still can't warn me if I didn't set correct burning speed or even if I forgot to put all of the files for writing!

What a crap then!

(ha-ha-ha!)

Edited December 31, 2007 by FelixCold

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You're overcomplicating the cancel function.

All pressing the red button does is bring up the cancel window.

But as you can understand, from an average user point of view the suggested thing of auto-switching into a pause state after "cancel" window is launched is rather simplifying than overcomplicating.

(no need to double-click!)

 

I know what you're getting at but I can't just have it so pressing the 'Cancel' button pauses everything!

 

As mentioned before, I don't/can't/won't keep track of every single program state just so the program can behave in a million and one different ways when the cancel button is pressed.

 

If I made it so everything paused the second the user pressed the cancel, I'd risk creating bad burns (excessive relinking) or instant coasters. That's the whole reason I added the 'Pause' button and put a big WARNING message up before it actually did anything.

 

Clearly you haven't actually pressed the 'Cancel' button before or you'd have already known to expect the confirmation screen (I believe consistancy in a GUI app is very important). As such, you're basing your entire argument of wanting it to work in a different way based on that one bad experience!

 

What about the 1000's of other people that have accidently clicked the 'Cancel' button and were very glad it didn't instantly create them a nice coaster?

 

It's impossible to please everyone.

[FelixCold]

I know what you're getting at but I can't just have it so pressing the 'Cancel' button pauses everything!

I thought what I suggest could be done without pausing "everything" - so I was wrong?

 

As mentioned before, I don't/can't/won't keep track of every single program state just so the program can behave in a million and one different ways when the cancel button is pressed.

OK, so how it is different if "Cancel" & "Pause" buttons are pressed one after another quick enough?

 

If I made it so everything paused the second the user pressed the cancel, I'd risk creating bad burns (excessive relinking) or instant coasters. That's the whole reason I added the 'Pause' button and put a big WARNING message up before it actually did anything.

Sorry Boss, but I still don't understand what makes such a significant difference between:

1. User clicks "Cancel", then "Pause".

2. User clicks "Cancel", then the same "Pause" is switched on automatically by a program.

??? - ???

 

Clearly you haven't actually pressed the 'Cancel' button before or you'd have already known to expect the confirmation screen (I believe consistancy in a GUI app is very important).

Yes, but I don't see anything strange in it, cos I never needed to use this function before!

 

As such, you're basing your entire argument of wanting it to work in a different way based on that one bad experience!

Yes, cos I don't see any reasons to expect that most of the other users will try to push that "Cancel" button before they actually need it, just to learn how ImgBurn works in details - to be aware for the future.

That's why I think most of their experience will be the same as my own one!

 

What about the 1000's of other people that have accidently clicked the 'Cancel' button and were very glad it didn't instantly create them a nice coaster?

Well, I based my opinion on the things I've read at this forum (when I searched for the term "cancel" before starting this topic) - the ones like this:

 

http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtop...4&hl=cancel

 

There you explain that there's no any danger in using "pause" function, in "manual" combination with previous "cancel" - the latter, as you've explained here, just brings up a cancel window.

 

It's impossible to please everyone.

You're of course right, but I dont want your program to meet any of my "personal" needs which could be out of logic or "mainstream" - instead of it I suggest something I consider as objectively right & useful & I've explained why!

Edited December 31, 2007 by FelixCold

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I thought what I suggest could be done without pausing "everything" - so I was wrong?

 

I don't expect you to know how the program works internally, but needless to say, no that's not how it works.

 

Try actually clicking Cancel and then Pause during a burn, you'll get a box pop up warning you that it could ruin your burn if the burnproof feature doesn't work properly. (something like that anyway)

 

That warning needs to be in there so automatic cancel = pause is simply not an option.

 

Pressing the buttons in the Cancel box only sets a flag within the program. The various functions / threads check those flags (paused / terminated) every now and then. The pause one is only checked in a few places - pretty much just during an actual read/write and not the operations leading up to it, of which there are loads.

 

I believe that the way in which the cancel button current works (popping up the confirmation box) is pretty much how any application would act. It's not like I'm doing anything new here.

 

Right so anyway, we can probably go on about this all day long but I really can't be bothered. It's working how I want it to right now and I'm sorry but I've no intention of changing anything beyond what I've already mentioned. Once again, I'm sorry that you wasted a disc, but hey, it's just one disc! Next time I'm sure you'll double check you've configured the program properly before you start burning something.

 

Happy new year to you.

[FelixCold]

OK Boss, as you say.

 

Sorry for wasting your time, but by doing this I just wanted to remind that minor problems are much more noticeable when there are no big ones around.

 

We don't expect much comfort & are ready somewhat for many "surprises" when driving on the potholed road, but just one such "surprise" on the even road can make so annoying that one & only broken wheel.

(it seems to me that I've alredy seen one like this somewhere here? )

 

Anyway, thank you for your great program, it's still the best & the fact that we're discussing such a minor problems here just proves this one more time.

Edited January 1, 2008 by FelixCold