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Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 7:02 pm
by frandavid100
It has been recently discussed in the Ubuntu developer mailing list that gnome-bt should be replaced by a more powerful bittorrent application. The name of Deluge was mentioned, but most participants rejected it because of its "overcomplicated" preferences menu:
What I liked best about Transmission, was the small number of sensible configuration options. Deluge, for instance, uses configuration GUI space to ask if you want to password protect the system tray icon. Who uses that? It's just annoying. Fine, if people want those advanced options, nothing is keeping them from installing Azureus or something like that, but they certainly aren't normal users.
Some users probably would attribute lack of features/options to lack of quality. However the spirit of the Gnome desktop is to have just enough options and sensible defaults. I really can't recommend a client that respects it better than Transmission.
You can find other similar comments on this month's
mailing list. I would like to see Deluge included in Ubuntu out of the box (much more than transmission) but I think it's true that the preferences dialogue could use a facelift, and a great deal of its options should be reubicated to plugin preferences or just replaced by sane defaults.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:18 am
by magnetik
Yep the preference window needs to be redone. Why not a simple one, and a box "Advanced options" which allows the user to have all the options ?
Having Deluge out of the box sounds great, and Deluge have to catch the opportunity and it must be a major objective I think.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:06 am
by andar
frandavid100 wrote:It has been recently discussed in the Ubuntu developer mailing list that gnome-bt should be replaced by a more powerful bittorrent application. The name of Deluge was mentioned, but most participants rejected it because of its "overcomplicated" preferences menu:
What I liked best about Transmission, was the small number of sensible configuration options. Deluge, for instance, uses configuration GUI space to ask if you want to password protect the system tray icon. Who uses that? It's just annoying. Fine, if people want those advanced options, nothing is keeping them from installing Azureus or something like that, but they certainly aren't normal users.
Some users probably would attribute lack of features/options to lack of quality. However the spirit of the Gnome desktop is to have just enough options and sensible defaults. I really can't recommend a client that respects it better than Transmission.
You can find other similar comments on this month's
mailing list. I would like to see Deluge included in Ubuntu out of the box (much more than transmission) but I think it's true that the preferences dialogue could use a facelift, and a great deal of its options should be reubicated to plugin preferences or just replaced by sane defaults.
I have redone the preferences dialog in 0.6.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:25 am
by magnetik
Is it possible to have some screenshot if you want feedback ?
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:05 am
by frandavid100
andar wrote:I have redone the preferences dialog in 0.6.
Well, Transmission was added to Ubuntu just yesterday. Given that this was the main reason the Ubuntu developers gave not to use Deluge as part of Ubuntu, I think this would be the right moment to talk to them and try to get Deluge in
instead of Transmission.
Time is precious.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:44 pm
by brettalton
I don't agree with that exclusion principle at all. Deluge's preferences are "too complicated"? Do you not think Firefox is complicated? Might as well switch everyone to Links!
They just said it themselves, Deluge is more powerful than Transmission. Nothing is wrong with power, so long as it is efficient. That's why Azureus isn't default -- too much of a memory hog.
Can we see a screen of 0.6 for some feedback? I agree that there should be an 'advanced' tabs for all those more advanced options, like proxy and passwords.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:22 pm
by mvoncken
The deluge 0.6 preferences are mostly better because there are less features.
And it's not mature enough right now.
Adapting to the release schedule of Ubuntu would be a problem too, the deluge release-cycle is very fast.
And I don't think markybob is a big ubuntu fan

, so he wouldn't rush to change the prefs just for Ubuntu.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:40 pm
by nargh
Deluge is still in Universe - and Transmission is much better than the standard BT client.
Sure, it offers less Options and Plugins than Deluge... but the normal BT client hasn't any.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:36 am
by loki
It's possible that transmission may have been selected based in part at least on age, it being older and more established... I don't know about better. So they might be waiting to see the track record in deluge a bit more.
Re: Please simplify the preferences
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:16 am
by jdhore
loki wrote:It's possible that transmission may have been selected based in part at least on age, it being older and more established... I don't know about better. So they might be waiting to see the track record in deluge a bit more.
Also, Transmission requires WAY fewer dependencies and at least as of writing, they've put out a 1.0 release. 1.0 gives unintelligent people the thought of more stability (although i've used plenty of Beta/Alpha apps that were WAY more stable than final versions of other apps)