Usability: During initial sync its not obvious that txn will not be displayed #1236

Report from IRC:

< Eliel> I think something needs to be done to the user interface to help users avoid situations like this. I wonder how many have just silently just abandoned bitcoin after trying and not seeing the transaction in their client. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/tcy73/help_i_withdrew_funds_from_mtgox_gave_them_my/ < Eliel> it's not clearly visible from the UI that you can't expect transactions to show up before the blockchain download is complete. There's also plenty of people who don't read instructions. < Eliel> I think a good way to fix this would be to show a note on the top of the transaction list that says "blockchain still downloading, some transactions may not show up"

Challenge here is that probably should only be emphasized during the initial sync— but how to avoid the user thinking the absence of the message means its totally synced and everything should be displayed?

Right, the warning message should be shown when either the last block is older than 90 minutes (when the spinner shows) or when there is no network connection.

The challenge here is really coming up with a good message. It should make clear that transactions could be missing, but that absence of the message doesn't guarantee that no transactions are missing.

Perhaps rather than a message that either shows up or not, show a timer that estimates how far behind the rest of the network the client might be? Reset the timer on every block or received transaction. Perhaps color the timer red and show the message if the timer goes past a certain limit value like 10 minutes.

A timer would be possible, but it will be much more imprecise than that. Blocks are generated every 10 minutes on average, but holes of up to 90 minutes still happen regularly.

If the chain is not up-to-date just display a small but noticeable lable with a good info message? No timer, just check if we are fully synced.

This warning should be shown on the overview page, probably in big red letters.

After all, it's not just the transactions that aren't complete. But the balance can be wrong as well.

Working on a GUI warning for this .. see #1314!

@gmaxwell Are you okay with this message as tooltip: <b>The displayed information reflects an older state. To get more recent information, the local block chain needs to be synced with the network. This process starts automatically after a network connection is established.</b> See #1314 for details.

Nitpicking: "state" is a bit of technobabble perhaps. "To get more" starts of sounding like instructions to the user to take action. Maybe something more like "The displayed information may be out of date. Your wallet automatically synchronizes with the Bitcoin network after a connection is established, but this process has not completed yet."

I'm not too concerned with the details. Let me see if I can prod wumpus on irc.

@gmaxwell I will update once the final sentences are finished :).

/agrees with gmaxwell's message

Updated the pull.