better feedback on querying TPL

[mfrasca]

something I find confusing: as of now, when you click on the sp_species_button button, the software starts looking up the data, but does not tell you in any way.

it would be nice if you would immediately get to see a message box informing you that ghini is looking up your data on TPL.

[mfrasca]

the above goes in the message box before we invoke the callback.
the callback should distinguish and clearly report the failure cases:

• request times out (we abort)
• server reports an error (they abort)
• request results in something I can't use (I don't understand the answer)

[mfrasca]

good enough for ghini-1.0, postponing the remaining issue to 1.1

[mfrasca]

it happened again:

and from ghini.desktop you have no clue of the reason for not getting an answer.

[mfrasca]

compare with issue #440

[mfrasca]

they fixed the issue on their side, but we still have to do something on our side, to avoid getting stuck and to inform the user on what is going on. compare with #458.