Upload slots per torrent pet peeve

[Switeck]

I had a couple torrents I was slowly seeding that I'd individually set to only 1 upload slot each while my other torrents used the "global" upload slots per torrent value.

I went to change the 1 upload slot torrents to use the global upload slot value as well...by double-clicking on the torrent, deleting the "1" in the "Number of upload slots:" box, and clicking OK at the bottom of the window.

Apparently, that does nothing -- as those torrents were continuing to use only 1 upload slot each.

It's not good enough to leave blank the "Number of upload slots:" box, (where blank = use global value) I have to put a 0 in there to make it work as desired.

I am aware that the box also has "[0: default]" next to "Number of upload slots:". That is why I am reporting this as a pet peeve in the General forum rather than a bug report OR feature request.

[jewelisheaven]

Hmm... to clear out your changes, I'd assume BLANK would work just as well as 0.

Is it by design...??

[Switeck]

Probably, hard to say since I didn't write uTorrent.

[Ultima]

Interesting. I haven't bothered to test this, but if it does happen, then it sounds like a potential usability bug to me. If µTorrent doesn't handle blanks properly... well, it shouldn't allow it then (or if it does, then it should be checking/correcting input before simply accepting it).

Into the Found Bugs forum it goes.

[jewelisheaven]

It could have been an introduced when the properties pane "feature" of adding "0"s to the numbers was removed?

Actually, if it's usability, there should be standardization.. I'm not sure if this is applicable to all numeric properties where clearing the value reverts to the previous value or simply goes back to default... I know for the advanced preferences it doesn't change unless you click SET.

IMO as long as the whole of the properties pane behaves the same it's not a bug.

[Ultima]

Being consistent doesn't mean it can't be a bug. It is a usability issue if it's completely ambiguous how µTorrent is going to behave, and µTorrent doesn't do anything to prevent that "unknown" from happening. There should at least be some catch-all for unwanted inputs.

[Switeck]

Guess I need to see where I can toss letters where numbers are expected then to turn up even stranger weirdness. Or commas in numbers...gotta love our European friends who use commas where we use decimals.

...Sanity-checking input in an insane world.

[Switeck]

This bug still exists in uTorrent v1.8

Letters, commas, and periods in the number fields fortunately didn't seem to work.

[Ultima]

Question: Was the blank accepted and kept blank before? As I've mentioned, I never tested this at the time you posted, but testing 1.8 right now, it's not exactly behaving too unexpectedly (visibly reverting).

When I previously "assessed" it as a potential usability issue, I had thought that the blank value was actually kept (even after closing/reopening the properties dialog), and that µTorrent was simply using some internal value instead. If that's not the case, then I think I'm going to make an about-face on the previous assessment and simply call this a different behavior -- not really more correct, but not really more incorrect either.

[Switeck]

But you'd think that deleting a previously entered value and hitting OK would actually revert to default...and you have to click on the properties of the torrent again to quickly find out it didn't take.

I also feel like it's a case of Zero is not 0. The "0" means something other than a literal number zero. It says so, but all the same it's about as intuitive as "put 'X' here to revert to default value".