Hi everyone,

I just noticed today that KTorrent has no KDE Handbook style documentation (at least in KDE). Am I just missing it, or does it really not exist? Also, is anyone working on documentation?

As I'm not much of a developer yet (trust me, you don't want me submitting code until I've had more experience) but still want to help, I would gladly write or help writing documentation.

Alex

I guess the docs has to be made with narrow intervention of the devs.

But i could help you with it if you like.
I don't know anything about doc stats though.

It would be great if you could write such a document. We don't have much time for that job but if you agree to do it, you'll have our full support and help if needed.

Thanks,

I haven't made docs before, although I've read enough to know the format in which they're supposed to be.

Since KTorrent 2.0 is already in Beta, I think that maybe we should make the documentation for that instead of 1.2.

Also, Thank you Ivan for your support.

We can allways use documentation, so if you have any questions just ask.

Thank you. Does anyone have any ideas of specific things to mention?

My current thought is to have an example-based tutorial of downloading an ISO image of a Linux distro. That way we can show a good (and legal) way to use KTorrent.

What should be explained in the tutorial? So far I'm thinking the following:

What is Bittorrent? A basic explanation of bittorrent (what it is, why to use it over conventional downloads)

What is KTorrent? KTorrent is a client for bittorrent downloads, yada yada (on same page as What is Bittorrent?)

How to use KTorrent - how to download a Torrent file and get the data with KTorrent (This includes opening the port on NAT routers - I think a web link would be best for that, though, as there are so many different brands of routers. Any suggestions for a site?)

Advanced KTorrent use (Set up the Queue Manager, set seeding limits, internal search function, etc.)

Glossary - Stuff like DHT, Tracker, Seeding vs. Leeching, Snubbing and choking

- For what purpose was bittorrent invented, by who, when, and a small success story.
- Who maintains it, and what is the direction it's heading.

This basic story about BitTorrent you can find here. I think you're free to copy that text.

Okay. Here's a small sample of possible text (is this what you mean? Thanks to Ivan for the link)

What is Bittorrent?

Bittorrent is a tool that allows for the cheap distribution of many files.

"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one"
— Journalist A.J. Liebling

Bittorrent lets you download files from other people that are downloading or have already downloaded the file that you are downloading. In turn, Your bittorrent client lets other people download these files from you. In essence, you are helping the maker of the file to distribute the file to others. This in turn lets the author provide this file cheaply (or perhaps even for free) because of lower costs to the author.

From Wikipedia:
BitTorrent is designed to distribute large amounts of data widely without incurring the corresponding consumption in costly server and bandwidth resources.

This also means that the longer you see your torrent files, the quicker other people will be able to download the file.

Bittorrent was originally written by Bram Cohen and is now updated by many programmers all over the world.

You can find out even more about bittorrent here

(the images from Ivan's link go here with captions)

What is KTorrent?

KTorrent is a client for the bittorrent protocol that is integrated into the K Desktop Environment. It is made to look and work like any other KDE program and be both user-friendly and fast.

KTorrent was originally authored by Joris Guisson and Ivan Vasić
and is now kept up-to-date by several programmers around the globe.

(Big KTorrent logo here)



So what do you guys think?

Technically speaking only Ivan and me are maintaining it, we get the occasional patch from several people, but we are the only active maintainers.