Indicators

Indicators are used to show that activity is taking place, even it it’s not visible, and in some cases, to show some measure of the progress of the activity. Mojo has four indicator widgets, but they belong to two types:

  • Activity indicator, or Spinner, which spins without showing progress

  • Progress indicator, which shows both activity and progress

The spinner is the only activity indicator, but there are three progress indicator widgets:

  • Progress Pill, a wide pill that is styled to match the View menu and the palm-header scene style

  • Progress Bar, a narrow horizontal bar with a blue progress indicator

  • Progress Slider, which is intended for streaming media playback applications

The Spinner widget is most appropriate when there isn’t much space in the layout for an indicator or when the duration of the activity is hard to estimate. In other cases you should use a progress indicator; it’s preferable because it gives the user a bounded sense of duration.

Spinners

Use a spinner to show that an activity is taking place. The framework uses a spinner as part of any activity button, and you’ll see it used in the core applications. There are two sizes; the large spinner is 128 × 128 pixels, and the small spinner is 32 × 32 pixels. These sizes are optimized for the Palm Prē screen and may vary on other devices, but the spatial and visual characteristics will be maintained on other devices.

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