Graphical display idea

[spamsucks]

The only problem with your program is that it's far cooler than it looks! I'm defragmenting a disk with several very large files, and the only thing that's changing is the text. Boring.

Suggestion: place a 4 pixel frame around the current display, highlight the row and column where disk activity is happening (top and bottom, left and right) by drawing 2 pixel white lines in the middle of the frame. Maybe you need to show the last n locations in order to make it visible, or maybe you can do one colour for read, and one for write... not knowing the internals, I can't say what works.

This would make a nice visual display of what's going on in the text, without too much code. Not boring!

[jeroen]

the only thing that's changing is the text.

Thanks for sharing your idea, I appreciate it! The problem is that the Microsoft defragmentation API does not give any feedback on what it is doing. JkDefrag commands it to move a file, and then all it can do is wait. There is no way to discover how far the move has progressed. By the way, JkDefrag colors the current file white, plus the destination, so there should be happening a bit more than just changes in the text.

[spamsucks]

Can't you derive something from the information you use to display "moving n clusters from x to y"? A graphical representation of that would increase the cool factor quite a bit.

I see the white, but I was defragging a volume I use for backups... one big 45Gb file and a bunch of "smaller" ones at 5-6Gb... on an external USB drive... pretty static stuff

[jeroen]

Can't you derive something from the information you use to display "moving n clusters from x to y"? A graphical representation of that would increase the cool factor quite a bit.

Let me try again. JkDefrag sends a command to the Microsoft defragmentation API to move the 45Gb file. The API starts processing and returns after half an hour, or whatever. During that time JkDefrag has no way of knowing how far the API has progressed. It doesn't know which part of the file has been moved already, and it doesn't know how long the move will take. All it can do is wait for the API to finish. To animate the screen I need information, and there simply isn't any.

The percentage counter at the top of the screen is an attempt of mine to animate the screen a little bit, so users know the program is still running. It estimates completion time from the file size and the disk speed measured so far. The number is unreliable and sometimes way off, but people don't notice it because it's a number. I've experimented a little bit with a graphical progress bar, but that makes the unreliability of the number painfully clear. So I switched back to a plain old simple number.

Putting it differently: I've tried, and this is the best I've come up with so far...

[spamsucks]

Ah, sorry about that. I did understand what you wrote, but it looked like MS gave you some sort of callback and you were using that to update the text; it was very convincing.

I guess short of intercepting low-level calls like something from sysinternals, there's not much you can do. Pity. Cool factor counts for so much with people.

Anyhow, thanks for writing this program, the intrinsic cool factor is great.

[oh yes, and thanks for entertaining my cats with your sound clips of other cats... now they don't know what the heck to make of my laptop anymore ]

[tOM Trottier]

I find the 1-pixel lines you use for the files not too interesting or visible. How about using 8-pixel wide lines instead?

tOM

[isgdre]

How about rotating the Color OF white via the Color Pallet say every 1/2 second.

That would be VERY FAST and make the "WHITE LINE" very visable.  You wouldn't have to change your code for writting to the screen.  Just empliment a timmer that changes the Color Pallet. 

[jeroen]

I find the 1-pixel lines you use for the files not too interesting or visible. How about using 8-pixel wide lines instead?

Thanks for sharing your idea, I appreciate it! Making JkDefrag pretty has always been secondary to me, all my time so far has gone into improvements and adding functionality. In the future I will make a prettier version, I promise....