Faster startup with background scanning of shares, Room walls, Importing your user list from Soulseek NS and more

Though I initially intended room walls to be the centerpiece of the next SoulseekQt build, most users, and especially those who share more than just a few thousands of files are probably going to be much happier about the initial re-scanning of shared folders when the client starts being moved to a secondary thread. If you're used to your SoulseekQt client taking anywhere between an uncomfortable number of seconds to start to, according to some reports, several minutes, chances are the new build will all but eliminate the wait. In the interest of full-disclosure, the re-scanning of shares is normally a two phase process that consists of first reading the contents of all shared folders from the file system and then incorporating the information into the client's data system. The second phase still takes place in the main thread, and with a very large number of files can still take a few seconds to complete, during which time the client won't respond. But the much lengthier process of actually reading the file system will happily take place in the background.

Room walls are basically a repackaging of the room ticker system from the original client. Room tickers were one of the last remaining items on our list of major original client features missing from SoulseekQt, but it's one we've grown to be a little irritated by over the years. The idea of the same lines of text cycling endlessly in an almost subliminal fashion was one we were hesitant to replicate. At the same time, we've always felt that the highly transient nature of chatrooms, which may work well for very large rooms, but not so much for much smaller ones, would be well-complemented by a more persistent dimension. We've envisioned a simple kind of bulletin-board associated with the room where users can post what they will, and there it'll stay for some time. Structure-wise, tickers had already embodied the qualities of bulletin-board posts. Only one post per user per room would help prevent flooding. The server already keeps all users in the room knowledgeable of existing and new tickers. We further tweaked the system to make tickers remain even after the user has left the room and repackaged the whole thing as the Room Wall in SoulseekQt. And with users already setting their tickers via Soulseek NS, we would have content to fill it with before the system even launched. Use the Room Wall button in almost any room and you'll see how it works.

Finally, a few important changes and additions:

  • Your user list from the original Soulseek client can now be imported via Options->Extras. There's a process involved, but it's all outlined when you click the Import button.
  • Only one notification button will now appear per window, as before.
  • Configuration data is now only saved once an hour, instead of every five minutes.
  • Re-enter search button lets edit your search text.
  • Excluded download file types are now case-insensitive.
  • Search results from unshared users will not be processed.

Links on the download page!

Thanks, Nir

Comments

psynaturecybine's picture

thank You!

Hi do you have any plans to ad accessibility to slsk qt? because at the moment blind people carnt use slsk qt atall. i have tried with jaws 13, jaws 14 and nvda. the screanreader carnt get any info from the program.

This is something I have looked into actually. I've gotten as far as getting the client to communicate with the screen reader, but as far as I can tell the information it's reading may not be very relevant to the user. If you want to try it out I'm happy to link you to a build. Maybe you can provide me with tips as to what needs to be read, I think I can modify the various UI controls to provide that information. I'm assuming you're on Windows?

trgarner's picture

Question: I have installed the 9/28 update and as indicated above the load time is WONDERFUL!!! Very fast and efficient, exactly what I need for me in the case of a person with 100k+ files... THANK YOU. When I installed it and started QT up, I thought something was wrong with the build, b/c I immediately saw the program fire up and start as normal. Was quite shock. Thank you.

However, I have a question regarding Private Rooms, I am a member of several and they are NOT showing up in the Room Listing, I rescanned, restarted, etc.. and still don't see them in the list. They are on my auto-log in so I know that they are there.. is there another function, tick mark, setting or something that I'm just not seeing that is hiding the private rooms from view??

Thanks... outstanding job as normal!

I'm glad background scanning is working well for you! Are you sure you're not seeing the private rooms in italics at the top of the room list? Are you positive that you're logged in under the same username that is a member of those rooms?

I discovered this new client just a couple of weeks ago and I like it very much, it's a big improvement in many respects. Slow startup was the only serious annoyance, so now I resist uninstalling the old NS client just in case I should do some comparative test.
Still there is one thing that doesn't work for me, although it's definitely not vital: I can't seem to add a picture to my user info.
That is, if I select a picture and then try to get my own user info, only the Upload slots, Free to upload and Queued uploads fields show correctly, while the main text box remains "Requesting..." forever.
Also, thus far I haven't seen any picture in any other user's info.
I guess this is probably due to my connection: my tcp ports are closed, and there's nothing I can do about it. But under the same conditions I could use and see pictures with the NS client.

I'm not sure what's going on there, you should definitely be able to see at least some pictures. If you'd like me to take a look at it through TeamViewer let met know.

Thank you very much, but I doubt this issue is worth bothering you with a TeamViewet session, and in any case I'd better try to look further into it by myself before asking for help.
So yesterday I installed the latest build, not only on my usual desktop pc (win xp) but also on my netbook (win7), with the same internet connection, and in both cases I was unable to see my own picture, just as before.
On the other hand I managed to see ONE picture, from a user who said he was on an NS client.
Then I brought the netbook to a friend's home where I could successfully open the tcp ports, but there, to my surprise, I found out I couldn't connect to myself, so no way to see my user info, no matter if there was a picture or not!
So I went on checking out every other user info I could find through searches, and I couldn't see any picture.
In very few cases the user info resulted in that mixed state I observe when I try to use a picture: visible data in the three small fields while the main window keeps "Requesting..." forever. Well, next time I see a user info like that I'll ask the user if they have a picture in it.
Anyway, all this testing is mainly for the sake of curiosity, it doesn't really matter if I can use pictures or not, more so since most users don't even care writing a single word in their info!
I love the automatic warning message for leeches instead, that's really great!

Hi i am sorry it's bin such a long time since i posted my comment, but i have had a lot on here at tapper towers. Thanks for getting back to me and thanks for looking in to making slsk QT work with screenreaders. there is menny blind people who wood be happy about this. as for testing i wood love to help and i will see if i can get sum of my friends to help me to. Just doing a bit of googleing i have found a few links that mite be a help to you. http://doc.qt.digia.com/qq/qq24-accessibility.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3893560/qt-accessible-widgets
by the way i am on windows 7 32 bit and using jaws 13 and nvda as a back up.
you can follow me on Twitter @tapper82 thanks.

thank u

Hello Nir, thanks for all the recent improvements. It is so much more usable now.

I do have a question on importing the User List. I followed the instructions on change the Option in the old version of slsk, but it does not seem to generate the hotlist.cfg file of my existing users. Is there another step I'm missing?

Thank you

I recommend installing Everything Search and using it to look for the file. Newer versions of Windows sometimes end up placing the file in really weird places.

Strange, but that worked. It was in ProgramData\Soulseek

Thanks

Hi been long time since I was on the site

AY's picture

Hi Nir,
for some reason I cannot get into the program, what is it that I am doing wrong?
AY