Re: [microdc-devel] features for microdc

[Mark Lee]

Hi,

On 10/18/05, Oskar Liljeblad <address@hidden> wrote:
> What new features do you think would be most important for microdc?
> What would you like to see implemented the most?
>
>  * Graphical user interface based on GTK/Gnome or KDE/Qt or curses?
>    Why not? There are already other good GUI DC-clients for POSIX
>    systems.

Only if someone tolerates having the Qt library on their computer
(which I don't, and the main reason why I use microdc).  In My
Not-So-Humble-Opinion, the only viable DC clients (for Linux, anyway)
are Valknut and microdc.
Anyway, I suppose now is as good a time as ever to ask if it is
feasible for microdc's DC-related routines to be encapsulated into a(n
LGPLed) library, which would be a good alternative to Valknut's dclib,
since this library wouldn't be dependant on a large library like Qt.

>  * Multiple hub connections
>    Why not? It's easy to run two concurrent versions of microdc.

That would be nice, if some sort of curses windowing was implemented,
as mentioned earlier on the list.

>  * File hashing support
>    Why not? What's the benefit - better searching I guess?

Well, on the other hand, it takes a significant amount of CPU (at
least with DC++).

>  * Retrying downloads and reconnecting to users

Either that, or having a command which shows all of the undownloaded
files (using the queue command and looking for the files which I
haven't downloaded isn't exactly the best solution for that case.

>  * Better platform compatibility (please specify platform/system)

If I knew anything about curses, I would help port microdc to Windows
(i.e., MinGW, not Cygwin), if only to be able to use it when I'm stuck
on that particular OS.

>  * Caching and automatic update of your own shared file list

I was thinking about this, and at least for Linux, one could plug into
fam/gamin/inotify to accomplish this.

>  * Bzip2 and XML file lists as supported by DC++

I'm not so sure about that.  It's great that microdc has so few
requirements for it to be compiled/run.  Maybe as some sort of
plugin...

>  * Move all code to CVS

That would be excellent.

>  * Prereleases announced on this forum, more often, for bug testing

I agree with Hasan on this one.

>  * Something else (please specify)

I would have suggested charset conversion, but it seems that you've
already taken care of that :)
Thanks (again) for making an excellent client!

-Mark
--
http://www.lazymalevolence.com/