Arranging Shapes in Circle with Expression Blend

Resource Page Description
A common UI metaphor in recent times is the circular wait cursor or progress indicator. This article shows some easy techniques within Expression Blend 2 that simplify creating this modern UI indicator. After showing how to easily layout multiple child elements in a 360-degree pattern, I will show animation techniques for spinning, sizing and fading sub-elements.


--Excerpt--
Read the associated article at
http://blog.wpfwonderland.com/2009/06/26/arranging-shapes-in-circle-with-expression-blend-part-one/

Keeping Them Happy While Waiting

It's a bad idea to start a long running task in your application and not provide concrete feedback to the user. If the user doesn't know that you started downloading their requested file they will eventually click the download button again. To avoid this you must let them know that their work is under way.

At the minimum, you must alert them that the process has started. This immediate feedback is important to reassure the user that they did the right thing, plus it prevents multiple initiations of the process.

Additionally it is nice if you can convey how long the process will take. This permits the user to make an intelligent decision about what to do next. A coffee break might in order if I know that it's going to take twenty minutes before I can install the downloaded file.

Finally, providing progress details can be beneficial. If you can display accurate information regarding the amount of time left before the task is finished, so much the better.

Ever since the first UI framework emerged, there have been attempts to provide standardized feedback to the end user. It has taken many forms over the past few decades.

Wait UI

Wait Cursor: One of the earliest attempts at user notification was the wait cursor, which an application would enable upon starting a task. The classic wait cursor is the hourglass or clock face. While this cursor is handy at letting the consumer know that the task has started it provides no other useful information.

ProgressBar: You've seen progress bars in action. These simple controls provide a lot of information to the end user. At a glance, you can see the task has started and how much of the task remains to be accomplished. Some versions of the progress bar shows informative text (example: 3 of 12 items downloaded) to provide even more details.

-- end excerpt--
Read the complete article at http://blog.wpfwonderland.com/2009/06/26/arranging-shapes-in-circle-with-expression-blend-part-one/