Hello !
First, really thank you for this latest release.

However, I must say I am not really too fond of the new UI.
Why is the search widget now at the bottom of the window, and taking the full width of it ?
This widget does not need so much room !

Well I can resize it vertically to a certain extent, so that it becomes bearable. But it is still too big, and ktorrent does not remember this setting after quitting.

And why is there one tab put vertically at the left hand side ("Groups", all alone, here), and the others are put horizontally at the bottom ("Log Viewer", "Search", ...) ? There are not so much different tabs, so why use two locations ?

An other thing : say I want to do a common and usual action such as setting the upload ratio of a torrent I just started. Since the main frame displays the search screen (because the new torrent has been scheduled from here), I need to:
- choose the "All torrents" tab (where I do not see my new download amongst the too long list of my uploads)
- open the "groups" tab (because the app does not remember I want it open when I start ktorrent !)
- then unfold "All torrents"
- then click "downloads" (here, I finally see my new download !)
- select the torrent
- show the properties zone
- choose the "state" tab
- and then finally set the ratio.
Isn't that a bit too much ? Wouldn't it be a way to make it shorter ?
When selecting a group, why does not the main frame automatically switch to the torrent list instead of the search results ?

A last thing, speaking of setting the ratio: basically I usually always set the same ratio. Since you added an option in the preference to set the default ratio, it should have done the trick. Unfortunately, ktorrent never remembers this setting. (but does remember the other preferences). I think we have an issue here !

aldoo wrote:Hello !
First, really thank you for this latest release.

However, I must say I am not really too fond of the new UI.
Why is the search widget now at the bottom of the window, and taking the full width of it ?
This widget does not need so much room !

Because if the search is vertically and when it is open, the window can take up to much space on lower resolutions.

But this will be changed in the KDE 4 port, it will most likely become a toolbar.

Well I can resize it vertically to a certain extent, so that it becomes bearable. But it is still too big, and ktorrent does not remember this setting after quitting.

And why is there one tab put vertically at the left hand side ("Groups", all alone, here), and the others are put horizontally at the bottom ("Log Viewer", "Search", ...) ? There are not so much different tabs, so why use two locations ?

Because groups is a more vertical widget then the logviewer.

An other thing : say I want to do a common and usual action such as setting the upload ratio of a torrent I just started. Since the main frame displays the search screen (because the new torrent has been scheduled from here), I need to:
- choose the "All torrents" tab (where I do not see my new download amongst the too long list of my uploads)
- open the "groups" tab (because the app does not remember I want it open when I start ktorrent !)
- then unfold "All torrents"
- then click "downloads" (here, I finally see my new download !)
- select the torrent
- show the properties zone
- choose the "state" tab
- and then finally set the ratio.
Isn't that a bit too much ? Wouldn't it be a way to make it shorter ?

Maybe, how would you prefer to speed this up ?

When selecting a group, why does not the main frame automatically switch to the torrent list instead of the search results ?

Because we haven't added that. However this isn't a bad idea.

A last thing, speaking of setting the ratio: basically I usually always set the same ratio. Since you added an option in the preference to set the default ratio, it should have done the trick. Unfortunately, ktorrent never remembers this setting. (but does remember the other preferences). I think we have an issue here !

What version are you exactly running ? Because it is remembered in the latest SVN version.

George wrote:Because if the search is vertically and when it is open, the window can take up to much space on lower resolutions.

But this will be changed in the KDE 4 port, it will most likely become a toolbar.

In fact if you could divide vertically the left frame, you could have both the group list and the search widget, with no more loss of space (provided you do not create too many groups !).

And even with an horizontal search widget taking all width, you could make everything fit in only one line of height (the search area, the search button, and the choice of the search engine could be on the same line !). Maybe that's what you mean, when you say it will become a toolbar.

Maybe, how would you prefer to speed this up ?

I don't know... I just find it very annoying ! Maybe it would be enough if the UI remembered my settings.

What version are you exactly running ? Because it is remembered in the latest SVN version.

I am running 2.1rc1.
If I remember right, this bug was already in the beta. I did not try the latest svn.

yea, down with the new gui I'd say )

However I appreciate the new efforts, I must say I enjoyed the previous form a lot better! The grouping of Uploads/Downloads in different tabs, no groups tab on the left (what is that for anyway? For all i can see it has just the functionality of the previous upload/download tabs which did take a lot less space so It's just taking up space in my case - and I can't even seem to turn it off), the search on the bottom instead of in a new tab, cluttering the transfer window if opened (I now run at 1280x1024, but what about people with 1024x768 laptops or smaller screens for example? That will clutter it terribly covering whatever; it just seems to have no convenience), all transfers in one window with no possibility to have them jump off to another (was very nice how I could just see right away where my downloads and uploads are by choosing the proper tab on the top, which didn't even take that much space, and not having to bother looking thru my uploads to check how many % is there still left on my downloads, which is the reason why i open up ktorrent the most i'd reckon).

It just seems as if there was some hidden option button somewhere in the new version that would make it become the wonderful new feature-rich program it just has evolved into along the way since it does seem like you guys put a lot of good effort in it. Please do keep me posted if that is the case

I'd say, if you (the devs) are yet unsure of whatever one to choose and are quite fond of the new look, why not enable (if that is possible, I'd really really appreciate and i reckon a few other people too) the choice of the old GUI somewhere in the options alongside a voting button mayhap? or the like? not to chuck in any spyware-enabled anonymous usage statistics app in there, just wondering tho how one could see which gui is the most preferred... maybe some poll on the webpage then or the like? certainly I'd be quite thrilled to see the old one making it's way back into the mainstream stable release - it was a lot more intuitive in my opinion than the one available now.

Cheers, and keep up the good work!

Matt

ps. Eventually, as I seem to have now (heh nice timing ;p) done a bit of work with the gui (it aparently is possible to move the groups to the top alongside the searches - dunno how and why I wasn't able to pull that off before) a suggestion might be that instead of having just groups, one could create new 'tabs' (like the groups or search buttons) from different groups! that would certainly somewhat at least bring back the upload/download tab of the old gui, keeping the new one on top. Am I wrong?

Cheers!

We have already decided to move to a different UI in 2.2, a combination of 2.0 and 2.1. With a search toolbar, and by default an uploads and downloads tab, with the possibility to open as many tabs as possible with whatever group you want to put in the tab.

Great news; Anticipating the new work in progress then.

Cheers!

George wrote:We have already decided to move to a different UI in 2.2, a combination of 2.0 and 2.1. With a search toolbar, and by default an uploads and downloads tab, with the possibility to open as many tabs as possible with whatever group you want to put in the tab.

Great ! That's the way to go, imho !

And for my max ratio problem, still no clue ?

aldoo wrote:

George wrote:We have already decided to move to a different UI in 2.2, a combination of 2.0 and 2.1. With a search toolbar, and by default an uploads and downloads tab, with the possibility to open as many tabs as possible with whatever group you want to put in the tab.

Great ! That's the way to go, imho !

Currently most of this is already working.

And for my max ratio problem, still no clue ?

We still have to look into that.

I use Debian testing which doesn't yet use ktorrent 2.1, so I hadn't seen the changes in the UI to 2.1 until today (when I tried the package from unstable), hence the late reply to this thread. I can't say I am fond of the UI changes at all.

Why is Search no longer in the top group along with Torrents and RSS Feeds? When searching it is nice to take up the whole window with the results webpages so one can more easily read the details and comments and whatnot.

As it is in 2.1, Search is now constrained to a much smaller area off to the side, instead of getting the whole window when its tab is clicked. In addition to making it harder to read and necessitating a lot of scrolling, it introduces a whole new tab group, cluttering the UI. There was nothing wrong with showing torrent list OR search results, showing both at once leaves too little room for each and looks like a mess.

Groups makes a little more sense on the side, though ktorrent got along just fine without them IMHO (they add no functionality to the process of searching for and downloading things with torrents). It was a lot quicker to select the Upload and Download tabs in the main group. If people really want to make custom groups, there must be a better way than a new tab group at the side/bottom/wherever.

In the end, what I really don't understand is why Search has been moved to join Groups. It belong with RSS Feeds and Torrents so it can receive as much space as possible for browsing results.

2.0x was already right on the edge with respect to tabs: in addition to the tabs at the top, the torrent List view had Satus, Files, Peers etc in a separate group within it. Adding yet another group with Groups and Search just goes too far. A torrent program need not resemble an IDE (KDevelop for example) with tab groups popping up everywhere.

Sorry if this sounds irate. Ktorrent is quite useful; I just hate to see UIs go to heck with overcomplication (ala Kaffeine with 0.5 and up)

As was said before, 2.2 has a different UI than 2.1. Try 2.2rc1 or build from svn.