Keep in mind that UDP means that many behind-a-firewall machines
won't be able to make any use of any UDP-based mechanism.
In general, there seem to be four situations with long waits where
some user indication would be helpful:
- long data transfer (the current numeric indicator in Mosaic handles that,
although a graphical indication would probably be nicer). If I
understand ftp right, the hash marks are generated purely locally,
simply by counting bytes, without any involvement of the other party.
- long search, followed by burst of data (archie model); all
status messages would precede the actual data (no need to send
escape codes, simply more header fields, for example)
- the tough one: bursts of data, interspersed with "think pauses",
probably without any indication how much more work needs to be done.
- one page consisting of text plus inlined images; the current byte
counts give no indication how long it will be until the whole page
is ready since there could be tens of inlined images
>
> --sanders
>