I’d like to be able to see sync status directly in the desktop top bar without opening settings, e.g. one of the following holds:
fully synced less than 1 minute ago
in process of syncing
local changes not yet pushed since last sync
no local changes but unable to sync for at least 1 minute (so potentially pending changes on the server have yet to been pulled)
This is particularly important when I’ve been working offline (on a train or plane) and I’m grabbing a few minutes of wifi to sync up before getting disconnected again. I’d like positive confirmation easily visible as to whether my local copy and the server are byte identical or whether I need to wait a little longer for everything to fully sync.
We have a sync status indicator, it’s just at the bottom of the navigation section. I agree it’s not the most visible location and maybe placing it in the top toolbar would work better
Are you referring to the “Saved” icon at the lower right of the left sidebar?
I see it now after collapsing PROJECTS but it’s completely hidden if the PROJECTS heading is expanded: the status indicator gets pushed off the bottom of the view.
Its semantics is not right in my opinion. I just did a test with machine A and machine B networked:
Everdo on both A and B shows “Saved”
I cut the network on B
I make changes on A
Everdo on A quickly switches status to “Saving” and then “Saved” as it syncs those changes
B is of course no longer in sync with the server as it has no network connection. But it still shows “Saved” as if everything is OK despite the internal sync failures due to the network cut. This is bad.
My suggestions:
move sync status to top bar
reveal last successful sync timestamp (or time delta to the present, e.g. “Synced last: 30s ago” with a hover to reveal a full timestamp)
make last failure to sync user visible (until cleared by a successful full sync)
reveal if there are unsynced local changes
reveal sync progress: “Syncing n of m items”
make the sync status clickable to “kick” a new sync attempt
Otherwise, there’s no way the user can trust that their local client is fully synced and take corrective action (check the network, press the sync button, etc.) when switching between machines in a degraded networking situation.