If you would ask me (yeah nobody asking me, by i will tell anyways ;) ) how the indication of a progress of some process should look like, here's my potential answer:
- a tiny one line in a corner of desktop (instead of huge banner centered in window, sticking on top of everything and obscuring the view) - not blocking user input - no stupid nesting.. i don't care what happens inside of something else happens.. if it is really necessary, i would just replace the title of a task with it's subtask title while it performing. this is just about first rule: it has to be a single line, not a bunch of lines stocking one over another.. i think this is abuse. most of the times, i just need a notion of progress of a whole thing, not progress of it's subthings (if user really wants, he can hover the mouse over progress line to see the details, but by default it should take minimal space on the screen). -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.