Fixing the UI

[iigloo]

One torrent-app for Mac that also has utilized the same "look" as uTorrent is BitRocket. An app that was deeply flawed and kinda looked like Xtorrent's ugly brother.

Still you can't help to see similarities between uTorrent and BitRocket UI-wise. So maybe that can be a source of inspiration? At least in some way, but BitRocket is probably a bit to "Tiger" and a bit less "Leopard" if you know what I mean. Oh, and the app is rather dead now, but still... Maybe someone finds something they like with it's UI:

Right click and Open Image in New Tab to view bigger.

[thelittlefire]

Does everything need to be available in the main window? What are people's thoughts of uT/Mac actually using the multiple window layout?? Transmission has a "panel" for torrent properties ("Inspector" it calls it), and the default Preferences window is already implemented...

There is a generic Message Log right now, but it's useless. Is there a push for more or less information available within the client? i.e. There are a number of events pushed to Console.app ... should uT's "Logger" tab be pushed into the Message window, or added to the familiar tabbed-view. What information should be at a glance in each of the corners ? While I'm not a huge fan of the "status bar" being relegated to the sidebar, I understand the logic for some.

While I understand and appreciate all this constructive discussion about icons and colors and what I term "eye candy" (not out of disrespect, especially given the display-oriented userbase) ... I must reiterate my STRONG desire to let the graphic designers in-charge do their work. Users cannot affect the PRESENTATION of information. So please concentrate on this facet of design.

The need to have a functional "default" is of-course warranted, but I can almost guarantee I will be skinning buttons/etc ... as I expect many others will also. Due to the open nature of .app's though it will still be more involved than in Windows, it's still only a part, a smaller part IMO as I stress again, than actually having features and processes in-place in uT/Mac which will lead to everyone enjoying it more and more.

[zenh]

@DSchau

I agree with most of your points like the shadow being too hard etc, but as I said, it was done quickly and I didn't put much effort into polishing it. This was meant more to give a general idea how things could be presented. Like how the speeds are no longer in the bottom bar etc.

The reason I've used the handle for the detail panel was simply because the developers made it resizable in the app (of course there's a reason for that too.) For just watching "General" info it's fine the way it is, but when you switch to Files or Peers, you need more space (for torrents with several files). Which actually highlights a problem with this implementation; the Files section isn't nested, so you'll end up with a very long list of files. Pretty hard to manage, at least very tedious. It's also quite annoying to have to resize the detail panel every time you switch tab. Since the General info tab only takes up a fragment of the Files tab of a large torrent file.

The reason the toolbar is so "empty" is as I said, just personal preference. I don't use "open" buttons, and feel they aren't important. However, the controls for starting and stopping torrents should of course be visually connected to what they control. That's why there's nothing over the sidebar, and I guess that's why it looks a little empty.

@osirisX

Looks good. However the detail panel lacks a "handle". Not necessarily the one I used in my image, but I think _some_ visual hint is needed. Not sure how I feel about the network lights, but at least they doesn't look so misplaced anymore. The tabs _are_ misplaced however, that's just a big no. Overall it looks good though.

@thelittlefire

I don't see anyone preventing the developers from doing their job, I don't really understand what you're trying to say. But then again, maybe I'm a bit dense.

[pHghost]

I must disagree with both mockup-proposed differences to the Downloaded/Available bars. The eye-candy mustn't overweight functionality. uT's bars are ingenious because they show availability and downloaded data not only in numbers and percentages, they show exactly which pieces are missing and what is the availability of each piece. This may not seem such an important feature to some of you, especially if you download torrents that contain only a few files, maybe just one. But if you want to download multiple file torrents, maybe several series of a TV show, and maybe you just want a few of the series in the torrent file, this gives you the best overview of what you are actually downloading. I found it useful, at least.

Otherwise, nice efforts!

[mistywillows]

pHghost I agree, the most important thing is functionality. Ive been using Azeureus, which even though it's ugly has a UI that gives much more information and control than any other mac bittorrent client. and I would be perfectly happy to stick with it, if it weren't such a fucking resource hog.

Back when the beta signup was first addded, i made a post saying the things most important to me are:

1. The ability to set the priority on individual files and only download the files I want;

2. the ability to adjust the maximum upload and download speed on a per torrent basis.

3. a UI that gives much detailed information in as the Pc version including:

a. a file view that gives progress bars that indicate what pieces in what files have been download ( not just the percent).

b. a peer view that shows what pieices are available from each peer in a large easy to read format (not a little square, like xtorrent or transmission), and a shows what the upload and download speed is for each peer.

c. a piece view that shows what blocks are being downloaded for each pieces, the speed, and peer contributing it.

d. a transfer view that gives us the elapsed time, time remaining, download speed, download limit, upload speed, upload,limit, seeds in swarm, contected seeds, peers in swarm, contected leechers, and share ratio.

If all that can be made to look good and mac-like, that would be great, but to sacrifice anything, to make it look better is unacceptable.

[NoOneButMe]

Since there's a whole UI Design section now, I'm going to close this thread. It's easier to follow ideas along in separate threads then a whole bunch of ideas in one thread. So feel free to (and please do) create new topics for each issue thats being discussed.