My initial thoughts on Qt

I can appreciate all of the work that has gone into developing the Qt client. It's great to see that you have incorporated so many feature requests into it and regularly put up new releases. Thanks for all of your efforts.

I've had the opportunity to test it out a little bit. My initial reaction is that I would have a very hard time switching from 157 NS 13e to the new client. While I like many of the new features, the whole look and functionality is very different to me. Maybe I'm just very resistant to change. I like having the downloads and uploads together in one transfers window. I also like having my userlist (with file counts) always available for my use on the right side of the screen. It doesn't seem as easy to use as the original client, which has a very simple and straightforward look. It takes more clicks to get to the same options. I miss all those dropdown menus at the top that make navigating so simple.

I know many of these have been mentioned elsewhere, but I wanted to combine all of my comments in one section. I will like the ones in the feature requests section that I'd like to see implemented. I'm running Windows 7 with 2GB of RAM.

Pros:

Re-scanning of files appears to be much quicker

empty shares automatic messages - I don't know how effective they will really be, but anything that encourages people to share is a good thing. I see quite a few unsent messages in the logs, so I wonder how many people are actually receiving them. Some clients probably don't even accept private messages. There's also the option on the main client to not receive any.

unshared files to users - love the feature

Diagnostic logs - It's very interesting to see who is searching for what files and making browse requests. Hopefully they don't use up a lot of extra memory.

Room walls - I never used the tickers. Are they any anti-spam techniques in place? I noticed there are no clickable links. What's the column in the rooms with the white paper icon for?

the progress bar - It looks cool. I'm not really big fan of the tree file format, but perhaps it will grow on me.

filters - These are for the more advanced users, but it's nice to have them available.

maximum number of queued files - I know this can be changed, but the default at 200 seems a tad high. 50 seems like a lot to me when a typical album has 10-15 files.

download complete and online alerts

Cons:

It's a memory hog - It used over 500,000k at the startup and only grew from there to over 800,000k range. I think it would be very difficult for anyone sharing over 100,000 files to share for any big length of time due to the memory and cpu usage. The original client also uses quite a bit of memory and usually crashes once it goes above 500,000k after a few days. Surprisingly the Qt client didn't crash after 12 hours of use before I disconnected.

No file counts anywhere besides rooms - This is the feature that I would miss the most. You say most file counts rarely change, but I see just the opposite - especially for people who are on my userlist who are always updating. Also, there's no K/sec in the users section. I noticed that updated speed numbers were actually displaying in recent months on the 157 NS 13e client. There was a time where mine always didn't display a number after so much sharing.

No flags in the userlist - I think maybe this was planned for the original client, but it was never implemented as far as I remember. It would be more for the curiosity factor than anything. It's truly a global program.

Ease of File Sharing - The option to share isn't very obvious to me and I'm a very experienced user. I think it would be better if it was placed in a more prime location: either in the Transfers window in a button besides the Away button or Clear Complete and Aborted button or at the very least in a separate tab. It seems very hidden to me in the Options section. Some people are clueless at finding the file sharing button in the main client, how are they supposed to find it in Qt? Maybe some kind of How I do share my files link at the top of the screen that leads to the file sharing window and that becomes hidden when they actually share.

Transfers window appearance and inability to dock the userlist - see above

no way to import the wishlist from 157 NS 13e

the folder structure when browsing somebody's files - I have my files organized in a certain way by a numbering system: 01, 02, 03, etc. They are all on different hard drives. The Qt system seems to sort browsed files by hard drive letter, so everything would appear out of order.

offline users still in the uploads window - I've only seen this a few times, so I'm not sure how widespread this is and what caused it. There's no way to clear them from what I can see. If I disconnect and reconnect they are still there. The Clear Complete and Aborted button does nothing to them.

no way to individually clear something from the transfers window - If a person queues up 8-10 folders and you only allow 1 folder, how can you manually delete their excess files? Your only option would be to unshare files with them. There appears to be no way to manually clear anything. Being able to highlight files like you can in the main client and delete them would be invaluable. I don't see an option to abort somebody's download, either.

no ability to message all buddy list users or all downloading users

the clear complete/aborted Uploads / Upload Slots options at the bottom in the uploads window didn't work for me even with the box checked - I had it set it to 10 originally and lowered it to 5 and it didn't take effect.

Hi TJT,

Thank you for your post, it's rare that someone ever bothers to post such an organized and well-written account of their experience with SoulseekQt.

Regarding memory consumption, yeah, that's definitely a big downside of SoulseekQt over the original client. It's a consequence of the data system being used which lets me do some very nice things, but it's not as efficient as using basic data containers. I've managed to reduce it somewhat, but it's doubtful I'd be able to do much more of that. It is a dilemma, since you either have to not be sharing a very large number of files, or be on a machine with more RAM to use SoulseekQt comfortably.

Regarding the user interface, you're definitely not the first one to state their preference of the original client in that area. Personally I think it's a matter of getting used to. I have gone some ways toward making the UI more like the original by moving item-specific options to context menus, and limited the action bar on top to operations that are more global.

Regarding file counts and flags. I would actually like to see flags in the user list too. I've been more resistant to file counts in the user list before, but I've found myself missing it a couple of times recently myself.

Regarding ease of file sharing, and this goes hand in hand with getting more people to share. I intend to offer to lead the user through sharing their first folder when they first start the client under the stipulation that it'll probably make their Soulseek experience more fruitful. I can only hope this won't move people to start sharing garbage, but this is one of the basic tasks users have the most difficulty with when they first start using SoulseekQt.

Regarding importing the wishlist, that would actually be very easy to do now that the code for importing the old user list is in place. The two operations are nearly identical.

I'll look into ordering in the share browse view. I've noticed numbers get messed up and make it hard/impossible to read messages written as file/folder names.

Regarding the client keeping queued uploads of users who have gone offline, that's something I'm hoping to address soon. You'll be able to manually remove uploads, and said uploads will eventually be automatically removed as well.

Your last item I'm a little confused about, the first checkbox on that line automatically clears complete/aborted uploads, the second checkbox enables the speed limit which is specified subsequently, and the last spin box is the number of upload slots. What were you trying to do and how did it fail to work?

Finally I just wanted to say that I realize SoulseekQt isn't for everyone, and that there are still very good reasons to stick with the original Soulseek client. The vast majority of our users are still on Soulseek NS, but the percentage of SoulseekQt users is rising steadily. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to put SoulseekQt on a feature freeze pretty soon, as it seems I'll have to get another job soon. I intend to be fixing any bugs that come up in the near future and make any small modifications that need be made, but, as much as it pains me, I may have to put aside any further major development of SoulseekQt in the interest of concentrating on whatever it is I have to do for a living next.

Thanks, Nir

I'm glad to hear that you have something in the pipeline to encourage people to share when they first install the client. That's probably the best time to get them to make the effort. I think many people are of the belief that the program automatically scans for their files after they install it. I hear that quite a bit. I have a few ideas that I'll post about soon that may encourage people who are already actively downloading and not sharing to do so.

I had the first checkbox selected, but it didn't do anything. It didn't automatically clear out anything. I still had to manually clear them with the button at the top.

I also had the second box checked, and it did limit the speed as designed. I was going to disconnect, but I wanted the last few people to finish their downloads. I lowered the number of slots, but I still had more and more people queing up and having their downloads start. Maybe I didn't do it correctly. I'll re-test it.

Do you need to have the 2nd box checked in order to be able to change the number of upload slots or is that independent?

You're right, the clear complete/aborted uploads isn't working. I'll get it fixed soon. Checking the upload slot problem now. The upload slot setting is independent of the checkbox.

Thanks, Nir

edit: I should have look at the code first :) the clear complete/aborted feature waits roughly five from the last status change before removing each entry, so as to preserve the upload place in line in case the user retries it.

I wanted to update my original review from October. I have been running the latest builds today. It's great to see so much progress being made and new features being added. Thanks for your continued efforts.

It was running at about 800MB after about 20 hours of use (sharing over 200,000 files with open shares), which is quite a bit higher than 157 NS 13e. Fortunately, it didn't crash. The high memory usage may have been due to the initial scanning. The re-scanning of files definitely appears to be faster.

The Qt5 does give it a cleaner user-interface. I'll have to give it a longer test to see how the memory is used over an extended period. Running around 400MB after a few hours. The browsing of shares does appear to be quicker.

I think I'm pretty close to making it my full time client. Now that some of the major issues have been addressed in the ScarletFire build, maybe some minor but still useful features could be added. Here are a few of my suggestions:

I would still love to have the userlist dockable on the side of the screen in the transfers window, rooms, etc. like the original client and Nicotine. Maybe there could be an "old-style" option for the UI like there is for the search results. I've tried to adjust to all the tabs, but the userlist is something that I always like to have visible.

Reopening unclosed private chats from previous session - I think there is some support for this standard 157 feature (see http://www.soulseekqt.net/news/node/987)

Import chat logs - I think you can manually edit the old 157 chat logs into the new Qt logs and they will still open and they can have new messages written. It doesn't seem like you can copy the old logs into QT entirely without a new QT log already existing because new messages will overwrite them. It would be nice to have the year displayed in them like 157 - [08Jul13 00:26:17] vs. QT [Jul 9 6:09:22 pm] (see http://www.soulseekqt.net/news/node/2061 )

the ability to be able to reorder the columns at will - this one I fully agree with. I don't see any benefit of listing the user first in the search results. (see http://www.soulseekqt.net/news/node/1166 )

Sortable columns in the userlist - A standard 157 feature. I see you can sort the Unshared column alphabetically, so maybe it's something that would be easy to add.

File count in the unshared column - Most of the people I will unshare are 0 file sharers. It would be nice to have the file count here, since some people will eventually start sharing and they can be given a second chance.

Wishlist import - If I were to fully commit to Qt, this would be the last step. As it stands now, I would have to manually re-enter 300-400 items that were on my old wishlist. (see http://www.soulseekqt.net/news/node/80 )

That's about it. My main wants would be reopening the unclosed chat logs and being able to dock the userlist on the side of the screen like in 157.

I think you are nearing the perfect client with the best of 157 and all of the new features in Qt.

Agree, just one point from your last year's October's "speech" is still an issue:
I like having the downloads and uploads together in one transfers window.

Absolutely spot on. This tabbing-back-to-and-fro from DL to UL has really been quite a bit ... erm ... cumbersome (ever since). Plus, you never notice uploads coming in "live" but normally only hours later when you check uploads.
And no, if you have no DL (0/0) and the tiny tab changes to (0/1) will more likely be overlooked than if something "colorful" happens in the Uploads window / pane.

Though not a top-pri feature, it would really be nice if there was at least a way to toggle this behavior.

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