Cosmetic bug with multiple source download status bar like red-ringing thing

Someone else mentioned that status bars would be a good thing (e.g. for pdf saving in progress). Fortunately there is a status bar of sorts when downloading multiple bibliographic items after having clicked the yellow rectangle in the address bar*, and chosen which of them one wants to download.

Then a grey area appears and floats upwards. Please see this
http://nihonbunka.com/zotero/saving.jpg

I think that this grey area is meant to be a successive red-ringing of each of the items to be downloaded in a list in turn. But for some reason the list is not displaying, only the red-ring or red-rectangle.

I think that it may be a layers problem because when I attempted to take a screen shot, in one attempt the list could be seen, with one item ringed, only in the screen shot even though the list is not there on the screen. I.e. perhaps it is there, but it is in a lower layer so can't be seen.

This happens to be from Japanese amazon.co.jp but it happens everywhere there are multiple item downloads
The Debug ID is D2102979830.
  • That's not a general issue - that display usually works - you may have to wait a while before it does, though.
    If it doesn't for you, my suspicion would be that a custom theme/persona or a different FF add-on is interfering. Try disabling all of those and see if the issue still exist.
  • I have disabled (though not removed) all my addons and I do not have a theme/persona that I am aware of, and it does still exist.

    I think that it is related to my Citeulike problem because the the first red rectangle appears during the select items dialog, before I have selected any items and before I have clicked the OK (add) button, which is not right.
    htttp://nihonbunka.com/zotero/redsquare.JPG
  • you have the most recent FF version? (10.0.2)
    It's not uncommon for the empty red square you see to appear first - but usually it gets replaced by squares with the data in them.
  • edited March 11, 2012
    All of us experience this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, the box with the red border appears as the connection is made in response to clicking on the address bar icon. The time before the box is populated depends upon a user's Internet speed but is more dependent upon the responsiveness of the publisher's site. For some publishers the box is populated almost immediately. With others the wait seems forever but eventually the site sends down what was requested. For example, lately I've had delays of 10-15 seconds or more before JSTOR responds to my requests. Other sites sometimes respond slowly other times they respond quickly.
  • DWL - yes, that's exactly right. But as I understand timtak he's never seeing the populated box(es).
  • I do see a populated box eventually. A larger box is populated later. I am sorry to have given adamsmith the impression that I do not.

    LIke DWL-SDCA I see an empty red box as soon as I click the yellow icon in the address bar.

    And like DWL-SDCA I eventually see a the full list displayed. There are thus two "boxes," one is the list of things to download, the other is a red box about the size of one item in the list.

    Or rather there are three boxes. First of all I am shown a dialogue box allowing me to choose which of the items to download.

    So, the list of things that can be downloaded is known to the Zotero client because I am shown it in the box asking me which I want to download.

    As soon as I click "ok" (start the download) I see an empty red box with a grey background slowly float upwards.
    http://nihonbunka.com/public_html/zotero/bubblefloatingup.avi

    I think that I should see the list of things to be downloaded and then see each item in that list be outlined in red, as they are being downloaded. I.e. I think that I should be seeing something like this
    http://nihonbunka.com/public_html/zotero/Presentation1.ppt

    However due to some problem with layers, the empty *outline* (box) is shown floating upwards, and then finally the populated list is shown.

    I came to this conclusion because, on one attempt to take a screen shot of the upwards floating red outline, the screen shot file contained the complete list with one of the items circled in red.

    Looking something like this (even though I could not see it on the screen, it is was as if the screen shot software - shift print screen - had taken a shot of what the programmer intended, but not what was displayed.
    http://nihonbunka.com/zotero/image.gif

    It is then that I realised (or think I realised) the meaning of the upwards floating outline box. It is mean to appear superimposed on the list of things to be downloaded showing which of them is in progress. I think.

    Tim
  • edited March 12, 2012
    ah OK - DWL is right then - that's never been different.
    I'm pretty sure what you saw with the screenshot was a coincidence and not a sign of underlying intention. The boxes don't (and can't currently) display the info from the select dialogue - what you see is the info from the items that Zotero actually grabs. In many cases this will look the same to you, but e.g. the box will show item-type logos, which Zotero isn't aware of at the moment you select items. Also, there are translators that don't have correct (or any) titles in the select dialogue - but the red box will display the imported title etc.
    I believe Zotero uses third party code for these notifications.

    In any case, these boxes are only moderately useful as progress indicators, as they're entirely unrelated to the download status of attached files - e.g. until a large pdf appears/is downloaded, the respective red bubble may have long disappeared.
    (edited to complete a sentence).
  • I am really sorry.

    I must have imagined that I saw those bubbly boxes outlining an item.

    So the empty boxes progress indicators akin to empty thought bubbles bubbling up to form a full bubble.

  • So the empty boxes progress indicators akin to empty thought bubbles bubbling up to form a full bubble.
    ;-) something like that, yes.
  • Lets be clear. Tim, your comment about bubbly boxes makes me think that maybe you are seeing something different. The link below is to a 22-second video of using Zotero to download citations from the SafetyLit database. Please understand that this is a low quality draft of one component of a tutorial. It consists of following a link to a listing of citations and abstracts from a recent week, clicking on the folder icon to receive a list of items available to Zotero (at this point the red rectangle appears at the lower right of the screen). After selecting the wanted items and requesting them, the red box displays the items as they are imported into Zotero. After a moment, the red box goes away on its own.

    http://youtu.be/xZZgssDSrJc

    The video will not be available indefinitely but will be replaced by something of higher quality. I will update the link above when the final version is posted.
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