how does a progress bar work anyway

[Felecha]

Just curious. The only two ways I can think of:

1. The app knows how many bytes it has to handle and takes a count at intervals and does the math

2. There are embedded "milestones" [bytestones?] and as the app hits one it is told "tell the progress bar we're 30% done"

just curious

 

[nickbits]

Both methods are used.

 

[Nothinman]

Both, when you setup a progress bar control you can tell it your min/max and an increment value and then call a step function and it'll update the bar by the increment value. Or you can just call a set function to set it to a certain percentage.

 

[Felecha]

ok, cool. I've done some Java and .Net programming, I just never did progress bars, and dont have access to either to look at them. I was just idly wondering today

Thanks

 

[Red Squirrel]

In windows I think some even do a rough time estimate then move it based on time. that's why some stuff often stays stuck at 99 as it's taking longer then the program calculated.

The milestone one is probably the most used though, as if you notice certain processes they always seem to stop at the same numbers.