Offline isn't a possibility here -- not for a host in a search result. Not unless machines can transmit search results telepathically without needing a functioning network connection. :)

Related: the chat availability/unavailability indicator is broken (and has been for at least two major version increases and counting!) -- it sometimes isn't greyed even when the host is unavailable. Also, attempting to start a chat doesn't provide the user immediate feedback -- if it fails, either nothing at all happens, or a window pops up saying host unavailable. If it succeeds, a window pops up without the host unavailable message. The window does not appear immediately.

The behavior of just about every other instant messaging functionality I ever saw in any app on any platform is for a window to appear immediately and let you attempt to send a message, but it will alert you if the message isn't sent successfully with a bounce of some kind. Some also detect if the remote host is offline and grey out the message send typing area and send button when possible (MSN Messenger comes to mind). So my suggested fix: the window pops up immediately, and failed messages bounce somehow; the host unavailable message appears if a host is definitely not there or not enabling chat, and the menu item is greyed under the same circumstances (so the host unavailable message is for a host turning off chat or disappearing after you already opened the chat window).

Alternatively, dump the chat feature in favor of a way to exchange contact info, by making and setting a vcard or something and sharing/not sharing this as you please, and retrieving someone else's if they offer one with a standard file name or something. People can then swap emails, ICQ or AIM or MSN contact id numbers, an IRC server/channel or server/nick, or whatever and use a real messenger app with better functionality and reliability instead of one designed as an afterthought and bolted onto an app principally designed with something else in mind. Limewire (and other gnutella clients) get more streamlined and less buggy this way, by being able to more strongly focus on the core functionality, namely file sharing. Contact remains possible but the mechanism now uses the main strengths of the protocol: file sharing. Contact follow-through uses applications that have a focus on messaging, and consequently work better at it. Everyone wins.

Re: Deactivate Active Download
 

AIUI, there is a "pause" button that can be used in such a circumstance, followed by the up/down arrows.

Being able to nuke+retry a download would be useful. Currently, if you get the corrupt file notice, you can either continue the download and get a probably-worthless file, or stop it. If you stop it, all you can do is kill it and then to make another attempt to get the file you have to search for it again, unless the search or host-browse you got it from in the first place is still open. Searching again may fail to find it and burdens the network unnecessarily (your machine already knows of sources for the file). Leaving a search open until everything you wanted from it downloads limits your options in various ways: less other searches you can run in the meantime; limewire tends to perform poorly if search tabs are left open for an extended time for some reason (and slows the rest of the machine down, even when its cpu priority is lowered!); and you can't close limewire without losing the search tab in question. Letting completed searches and host-browses be saved and loaded, or "put away" and "brought back out" at least, would alleviate this a bit, but really there needs to be a third option for corrupt files: retry. In fact, any file should be retryable. Retry would be a right click option from a download pane item. It would a) halt the download, if in progress; b) delete the incomplete file; and c) resume it, causing it to be queued and eventually start downloading from byte zero. It would be the default option on the corrupt file dialog, with the other options being kill download and continue. (The useless "File Corrupt" status would be gone; you may as well just kill in that case, once you can retry from the file corrupt dialog.) Completed and partial files that aren't explicitly flagged as corrupt are sometimes also in need of a "retry" option, owing to Limewire's woefully poor ability to detect corrupt files reliably. Frequently a file is not as advertised, despite being a valid search result -- I've several times told it to get a batch of sequentially numbered files resulting from a specific search for specific subject matter and found most, on arrival, to be what they were supposed to be but one or two of them to have gotten substituted with spam or damaged somehow -- without the file corrupt dialog occurring, and without the search results being the common spoofed ones that are just "y_o_u_r__s_e_a_r_c_h__t_e_r_m.wmv"n or similar (those I just ignore). I presume that these result from a spammer/spoofer/vandal participating in the download mesh for the file, and Limewire trusting the host that sends the file to send the correct hash as well, instead of the hash coming with the search result instead (stupid; bittorrent is much, much smarter in this area; the scheme Limewire uses seems to be good at detecting accidental corruption but bad at detecting intentional corruption by a client in a file's mesh that is acting in bad faith and attempts to avoid being discovered until you've wasted your time fully downloading the file).

Totally agree with what sberlin said, but i would add (if this hasnt been said b4):

- ability to search for a particular filetype (.pdf, .cbr) etc

-ability to rate something as a fake

-ability to cut out a search tearm; for example you might want to search for "star wars", but cut out all entries that have the word "skywalker"

-chatting feature like msn with a "nudge" to alert the user or a sound or just somehting to grab their attention

listing numerical search columns in NUMERICAL order
 

I should very much like it if colums in the Search field which show number ... mainly Length and also bit rate, and track numbers... could be shown in true numerical order. e.g. the order of the numbers 100, 2000, 101, 60 should appear as 60, 100, 101, 1000. At present they appear as 100, 101, 2000, 60

Thanks!

stop auto download at start
 

please stop auto download of all files when Limewire opens...or am I using priorities wrong? I don't want 20 files opened when I start Limewire. thanx.

Have been playing with the new beta for a couple of days. The file warning dialog doesn't tell you in the overwrite file prompt if the file you might overwrite is the same, unless it's being shared. How about changing it to compare hashes when filenames are the same, and if the files are the same just say you already have the file, with an OK button and a don't show this again checkbox. If the files are different, the usual overwrite prompt appears.

Requeries and zero length files
 

Requeries should use the file hash. Suggestion: for now send two queries, one for the file name and one consisting of the SHA1, and start considering a file's SHA1 to be one of the things that can match a query term, as well as artist, album, file name and directory names, and so on.

When enough clients out there regard a SHA1 of a file equaling a query term as a hit, then you can drop the original query and only send the SHA1 query, reducing network load.

Requeries should be much better then.

Also, zero length files should not be shared. They're automatically useless -- anyone who wants one can create their own by means of right click, "new text file", and rename to suit on Windows and by using trunc on any file on any sane operating system.

Some suggestions for Limewire 5
 

First, Ive been using LW for maybe 5 years now and I still think it is the best P2P program out there! But over the years, many have grown more than LimeWire, because the fixes only include the little problems that people barely knew about. Here (in my opinion) are some suggestions that would make LW 5 be even more awesome!

- Changing the header from 'LimeWire: Enabling Open Information Sharing' to 'LimeWire: The Fastest Open Information Sharing on The Planet' or something similar.
- Adding a tab for a web browser with a homepage for Limewire basic and special homepage for pro (maybe with pop-up blocker as well?)
- In Search, downloads, uploads, and library, instead of the name of the file (ex. Black Eyed Peas - Lets Get Retarded, there could be 2 headings, Title and Artist. That would make the library and search more useful.
- Search the library function
- Search more function-- instead of clearing the results and re-doing the search
- Make a Traffic tab (including Downloads/Uploads) and removing downloads from the search tab, and uploads from monitor tab.
- Remove last searches from monitor tab (who uses that anyway?)
- In monitor add 'Connections' to that and maybe Network details like # of users on the network, # of files etc.
- *IMPROVE THE PLAYER!* make it seekable, maybe a equalizer, and add a theater tab for picture and video viewing with a visualization thing
- Make playlists more usable like by removing the bottom window in library, and saving teh title of playlist to the organization window and opeinging them in the main part (similar to iTunes)
- Change the Enqueue button back to Add to Playlist
- Remove 'Get limewire pro' tag at startup to basic and add a graphical LW Pro ad wher current text ads are.
- Continue to make the little changes and keep up the good work!

And to all the LW Basic users - SUPPORT THE LW TEAM AND GET LIMEWIRE PRO

An option in the downloads preferences to limit the number of connections to a single remote host. Check it and another option lets you set a number, default being 3. This is for those hosts that will not let you get more than 3 files at a time, and the others all end up awaiting sources. With this option if you find four files on the same host, it will get three of them and the fourth will stay queued. Then when one of the first three download it will try to get the fourth, and it will end up downloading instead of awaiting sources.