[IPython-dev] Kernel busy/idle indicators in notebook

Thomas Kluyver takowl at gmail.com
Mon Jan 20 17:48:14 EST 2014


I think you're right, those notifications are unnecessarily noisy. And I
like the idea of a small icon that indicates when the kernel is working,
perhaps at the right hand end of the title bar. I might have a go at this
tomorrow - I've been meaning to spend some more time in the JS.

Thomas


On 20 January 2014 09:17, Jason Grout <jason-sage at creativetrax.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, but hesitated because
> it's somewhat a bike-shedding issue.  I'll throw it out there, though,
> as a small thing that I think detracts (and distracts) from the user
> interface of the notebook.
>
> Right now, it seems that when the kernel starts executing, the words
> "Kernel Busy" flash up in the upper right of the notebook, and when the
> kernel stops, "Kernel Idle" flashes up there.  In cases where you have
> lots of computations being sent back and forth (for example, when
> playing with the new interactive widgets), this activity in the
> interface in the corner of my viewing angle gets rather distracting.  It
> even gets distracting (for me) when executing normal computations---I
> see a flicker of something when a result is returned, and automatically
> glance towards the flicker and see it is just the kernel idle message
> flashing up.  This needless distraction breaks concentration and
> detracts from the content that just appeared.
>
> Proposal 1: eliminate the kernel busy/idle indicators from the main
> interface.  We already have the indicator in the input prompts when
> executing normal cells (e.g., [*] instead of [number]).  We could put
> some indicator of kernel status in the menu if it seemed necessary.
>
> Proposal 2: Make the kernel busy/idle status indicators much less
> distracting by making it a small muted icon or filled circle, similar to
> a hard drive or ethernet port activity light, that only is displayed
> when the kernel is busy, but turned off when the kernel is idle.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jason
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