"On complete" action

[vv]

Let's take a look at "Options | Auto Shutdown" menu. As you can see - menu contains a lot of similar pairs with one difference - condition when the action should be taken. Is it either when program completes download or when program completes everything.

I think the current menu "Options | Auto Shutdown" could be re-designed to avoid duplications.

One of possible ways could be this one. Make 3 groups:

1. Condition

1.1. Downloads complete

1.2. Everything completes

2. Action:

2.1. Do nothing

2.2. Quit

2.3. Hibernate

2.4. Standby

2.5. Shutdown

3. Continuation

3.1 Finish torrent

First group determines condition when program should take an action. Group could be made with two radio buttons or just one item with check box.

Second group is several actions to be taken when condition specified in first group is achieved. It's group of radio buttons. I did not include "Reboot" there because I do not see its value comparing to "Shutdown". But I don't mind to include it in the group either...

Third group determines what to do with torrents after the action is taken. One may want to continue seeding torrents, while another one may want to finish (stop) torrent. The latter is useful in cases when you want to put computer in e.g. standby (or take any other action) when you're done with seeding. So, next time you resume computer - you don't want to notify trackers that you're still seeding (because it's not your goal), and soon after that you finally stop the seeding manually. It creates unnecessary traffic that could be easily avoided if uTorrent will scrap the torrent before it goes into standby (if user wants it).

After restarting uTorrent the second group could be re-set to "Do nothing", while the rest of groups should keep value specified in the last session.

If you want more details please look at this post:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=59901

[Ultima]

Regarding duplication: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=52933 (discussed before, acknowledged that there's a problem)

Putting 3-part condition/action criteria in menus doesn't sound like a particularly good idea to me. There are usability problems with potentially having to drill through menus 2-3 times to set up one action. With the existing implementation, it's guaranteed to be 1 drill-click maneuver for the user to get what (s)he wants.

[Ozmodius]

How about assigning Flags to selected torrents?

A Flag dialog could handle multi selection and allow many options.

Things like...

Move/Copy to ... on completion.

Shutdown/Suspend/Hibernate/Quit after completion.

etc.

The condition would occur in the Flags are true for ALL items in the list.

[Ultima]

That's moving into the generic global action on completion territory, which has been requested many times before, and is already on the todo.

[vv]

Ultima, thank you for the link in post #2.

With regards to your concerns about usability problems with user, that will have to go through menu 2-3 times to set up one action - I think it should be mitigated with keeping settings for 1st and 3rd section between sessions. After restart the program has to reset only 2nd section to "Do nothing".

From my experience - I'd use the same settings for 1st and 3rd section same almost all the time. So, what effectively I'd have to do when I need to set an action is to change 2nd section and that's it. In this case only 1 path going through menu is required (as it's now).

After reading discussion referred in the link, here is yet another version of the same menu. IMHO it indicates in a bit more clear fashion what all menu items suppose to specify. 1st and 3rd sections could contain check boxes. 2nd section should contain radio buttons.

When complete:

Downloading

Seeding

Action:

Do nothing

Quit

Hibernate

Standby

Shutdown

Follow up with:

Seeding

Note: if you do not mark check box close to the last item ("Seeding") - program should complete (stop, finish) seeding. So, next time when user resumes computer from standby - it will not start seeding again.

[Ultima]

Right, I understood you, but what you usually find to be the case isn't a guarantee for every user. Sure, it's sometimes one drill/click exercise, but it's sometimes more as well (hence "potentially" 2-3 times). For example, I've found that on the rare occasions that I ever use these options, I rarely use the same setting -- sometimes, it's hibernate after everything completes, sometimes it's standby after downloads complete, and what have you.

That aside, it's simply bad design (in my eyes) to have too much configuration in the menus -- especially if the options are all interlinked/interdependent in the way you're describing. If too many options are found in menus, then usually, I'd recommend putting them in some configuration dialog (Preferences), but the reason these particular options are in the menus is that they're not meant to be permanent (of course, getting reset after they are enacted). Keeping the menus as flat as possible keeps them least confusing.

[vv]

The last section of the menu (header - "Follow up with:") could be eliminated. It's possible to achieve the goal with setting "Options | Queuing | When uTorrent Reaches the Seeding Goal | Limit the upload ratio to" to 0.

So the menu could be even simpler:

When complete:

Downloading

Seeding

---------------

Action:

Do nothing

Quit

Hibernate

Standby

Shutdown

I agree with you, a dialog could be used here as well. But I think menu is a bit better (I'd say, two extra clicks better ). With regards to keeping some configuration settings between sessions (particularly in "When complete:" section) there is example of such options in "Options" menu - e.g. "Show Toolbar F4".

On the menu section headers ("When complete:" and "Action:") could be grayed and a separator could be used do divide those two sections.