Bug 227075

(In reply to comment #0)
> Output window is a nightmare in netbeans.
I wouldn't say it that strong, a lot of users, including me, are satisfied with the current behavior.

> Why not to use one ICON to signalize that the action was successful or not 
> (ex: green / red) ?
It's more a question for project build support.

> If errors occur, then clicking the icon would open the window with the
> information.
Try Main Menu -> Options -> Java -> Ant -> Always show output
(I don't know whether this can be set for Maven, too.)

> Output window should NOT "steal" space from the code area and I think is 
> really annoying to have to CLICK the code to see the output window disapear.
Just pressing <Escape> should work, too.

> I think this behavior is inconvenient and you should replace by one of these
> options:
>
> 1- A "live" icon in the status bar (if clicked to open the window).
> 2- An AUTO-HIDE window, showing info for 3 seconds only and then folding 
>    itself in the icon.
I think that 2) is not very user-friendly. If you start reading the output and it suddenly disappears, and you have to click some icon to show it again, it's not very comfortable.
Probably it's better to perform an action (press <ESC>) to inform the IDE that you have finished reading the output, rather then to perform an action (click a small icon) to inform the IDE that you want to continue reading the output.

Option 1) seems better to me. But still I think the current state is fine.

Reassigning to Generic Project UI. Milos, please evaluate. Thank you.

I confess I am a bit ashamed that I didn't know that ESC works to hide the output window.

Other information that would help is that I use it for PHP.

So, the output window appears mostly to see ftp uploads, so you would agree that the ftp information itself is not so worth reading, we only want to know it it succeed or not.

In this case, a simple ftp icon with colors: red green and yellow would give me a good feedback of the ftp transaction. When I start a new ftp transaction the icon could turn to some grey color and then after the process, to color according to the ftp results.

(In reply to comment #2)
> I confess I am a bit ashamed that I didn't know that ESC works to hide the
> output window.
It's OK, no problem :-)
 
> Other information that would help is that I use it for PHP.
Yes, that seems helpful.

> So, the output window appears mostly to see ftp uploads, so you would agree
> that the ftp information itself is not so worth reading, we only want to know
> it it succeed or not.
> 
> In this case, a simple ftp icon with colors: red green and yellow would give me
> a good feedback of the ftp transaction. When I start a new ftp transaction the
> icon could turn to some grey color and then after the process, to color
> according to the ftp results.
I thought that the bug is about output window shown after build of a project.
If your concern is mainly the output window shown after FTP upload, you should probably reassign the bug to PHP/FTP Support.

I agree. The most annoying is when you're running SQL, and the window pops up (obscuring the result set) just to say something like, "Query successful." Duh!.

My solution is a bit less drastic. If the new output shows a problem (log level WARNING+ or output to stderr), pop up the window as usual. If not, just make the minimized title bold or a different color (I'm thinking a nice dark blue) and the user can open it at her leisure.

not directly projects related, reassigning back to the output window