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Explore ways to show execution progress while the execute cell is out of the viewport #130611
Description
Summary
When running a notebook that has a lot of cells, it can be hard to keep track of where the currently executing cell is. It becomes harder when the currently running cell is out of the viewport, so the user has to scan to notebook to find the correct one. See example below, where is the running cell?
Concepts
These are all a collection of different ideas that I've explored. We can combine some of these different ideas together or treat them as separate items.
Status bar item
A simple option would be to add a status bar item that says Running cell XX (8.2s) and clicking on it would take you to the running cell:
Adding indicators
In addition to this, we could also add indicators in the outline view and editor tab. This is helpful for when you have the outline view open or you are on a different tab and want to know if a notebook is still running.
Adding item in notebook toolbar
We could also add an action in the toolbar that will take you directly there, though we have to battle with the other actions to make this visible:
Alternatively, we could turn the kernel picker into a split action that and change the icon of the kernel into progress:
Notifications
For the cases where a notebook can take a while longer (+1min) we could look into showing a notification if the user has focus somewhere else (like anther notebook)
Activity
vscode-triage-bot commentedon Aug 11, 2021
Pinging
notebooktopic followers: Claudia Regio (@claudiaregio) Rich Chiodo (@rchiodo) Jim Griesmer (@greazer) Don Jayamanne (@DonJayamanne) jilljac (@jilljac) Ian Huff (@IanMatthewHuff) tanhakabir Paige Bailey (@dynamicwebpaige)rchiodo commentedon Aug 11, 2021
All sound good to me except the 'Go to running cell'. Maybe I'm misunderstanding that one though. Is that only available when actually running?
miguelsolorio commentedon Aug 11, 2021
Rich Chiodo (@rchiodo) yes, this is for the case where users may not see the status bar item and having an extra item added there. I'm unsure if this is the best place as the toolbar is pretty busy and things overflow. But it was worth adding there.
miguelsolorio commentedon Aug 11, 2021
One additional idea that jilljac (@jilljac) mentioned was that it would be cool if when the user clicks on the
Go to running cell...item, that we go into a "following" mode where the focus follows the active running cell. Helpful when cells running can execute quickly and then you lose your place. #107919 covers this but would be cool to wrap it into the work here.show progress when cell input is collapsed re #130611.
IanMatthewHuff commentedon Aug 11, 2021
That notification idea is something that customers have requested before. I believe at least one customer even wanted like a toast notification in Windows so they could bop back to VS Code when their notebook was done running. Might be more of an opt in feature though, hate to add new popups if we can help it.
Status bar is very commonly missed by customers, but it's also quick, non-noisy and easy fix, so I like that as one option. Also kinda like making the kernel picker running icon clickable. I'm not sure if that is a place that I'd normally expect a click affordance, but it makes sense to me conceptually without wasting more toolbar real estate.
miguelsolorio commentedon Aug 11, 2021
Also adding minimap #115266 as another idea that jilljac (@jilljac) Peng Lyu (@rebornix) also mentioned. Here's a quick mockup:
23 remaining items
greazer commentedon Nov 8, 2021
On the iteration plan for Nov, so making it part of the November milestone.
roblourens commentedon Nov 28, 2021
To summarize
Is showing the execution count for a collapsed cell part of this?
Add "Go to running cell" button
Show editor progress bar when executing cell is scrolled out of view