Comments and Issues on Phex 0.40
 

Hi Konrad! Congratulations on the new version and the "candidate" functionality.

I've tried Furi, Bearshare, Limewire, Gnotella, and Gnucleus so far... and this client seems to hold a lot of potential.
The two features that seem to be the most appealing are the ability to preserve download lists after exiting, and the automatic acquisition of additional candidates.

(Before getting too far into this, please know that I like the client, and the functionality that you're bringing in... please don't take any of this as anything but constructive in nature.)

I have Phex running, and it seems to be doing OK... but one thing that I noticed after a little while is that many of the display sections that contain lists begin to flicker in a headache-inducing fashion (as the lists are re-drawn over and over).

This wasn't happening initially, so I suspect it may have to do with getting to a certain capacity. Once it starts, though, it propagates throughout all of the list boxes. A way to fix this would be greatly appreciated.

I've also noticed in the download section that if a download disconnects, that the rate (and time-remaining) information remains at whatever value was in place at the moment of interruption... despite the fact that the transfer rate is now clearly zero. This is something of a problem for me, since I'd like to be able to sort all of my in-progress downloads together in the list.

While on the subject of sorting, is there any way to get the client to KEEP the lists in sorted order? As an example, if I'm doing a search, I'd like to be able to tell it to display the results in descending size order, and have the results insert themselves as appropriate.

As it stands now, if I sort the list, any additional results get added at the bottom of the list, breaking the sort order. I either have to keep re-sorting it manually, or stop the search and sort it -- which prevents me from getting any additional results.

I've also noticed that, despite setting a minimum speed requirement on my searches, hosts with all speeds continue to be returned in the list.

Would it be possible to get a "current number of candidates" column in the download display?

And perhaps a way to change the colors that are used for the different states? (I don't typically treat red as an "in progress" color, and it's a bit tough on my eyes...)

It might also be nice to have the incomplete files in a separate directory from the completed ones. Several other clients already do this, and it makes re-sharing of downloaded files much cleaner and easier.

I'm also visualizing a more robust method of preserving the state of the candidate lists across sessions... probably involving some form of serialization.

As it stands (unless I'm mistaken), if I create a list of candidates that all have slightly different file names but identical file sizes, I'll lose all but one of the names for the candidate grouping once I exit and re-enter.

Whew. A bit longer than I expected, but I wanted to be sure to share these observations with you, and I look forward to the next version of Phex!

Barry Kearns
bkearns@frii.com

Oops! Almost forgot, there's one other thing that I noted... one of the hosts that I'm connected to right now shows "633/-1221MB" under the "Shared" column... you might want to check that variable for wrap-around. http://forums.gnutelliums.com/wink.gif

Barry Kearns
bkearns@frii.com

Well, although your comment was a tough read I really appreciate it. You point your finger exactly at what I also noticed by now and classified as "ugly but not fatal". Your observations are the same I (and I think quite many Phex user) already made.
My main problem with developing Phex is the limited time I can donate to it, as it´s priority is clearly below my job and my social life. However, I will keep working on it and some of the issues will be addressed in a future version. But as long as there are more pressing issues they will have to wait. I am only just at the beginning of the development of Phex and there is so much I want to do, but it might take long to really do things the way I want them done.
Never forget that most of Phex is still almost identical to Furi and the new features are rather "roughly" coded into the original source. If I ever find time to clean it up, I will.

Bye,
Konrad