Description
Recently I've helped several people resolve problems with uploading to their boards. By following up with users, clearly the "Compiling Sketch" progress bar is not effective at showing ordinary users that the IDE is indeed busy working on compiling their code. When trying to diagnose uploading issues, people typically change setting which cause most of their uploads to rebuild all the code, taking far longer. The lack of clear feedback makes it very easy to prematurely conclude an upload attempt isn't working, when in fact the IDE is merely taking time to fully rebuild of all code.
Perhaps part of the issue is the UI placement of the progress bar on the right hand side of the window? Maybe @00alis can have some insight?
But the biggest issue is the progress bar does not smoothly animate. The lack of continuous movement makes it easy to miss. There is no other animation or visual effect when the bar isn't moving. Even if users do see it, the fact that is spends 10+ seconds on slow computer stuck at the same position, without any animation or movement to visually confirm the IDE is still working, is a huge liability for misunderstanding.
After just one upload fails, an ordinary person's confidence in the reliability of Arduino becomes shaken. We really need this progress UI to give much better visual assurance that the IDE is indeed working. I know this may seen pointless or trivial, but it can make a huge difference to ordinary people, especially when they're struggling to deal with uploading issues.