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Beta 433 new network status icons: skinnable?


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I'm partially colorblind and the new color based network status icon is now worthless. I haven't the foggiest idea what color that thing is. And there isn't any popup to tell me what's going on. I'm running Windows ME (yes I know but that's why I like uTorrent since it runs well on old systems) so maybe that's why there's no popup. I don't care if the network status icons are skinnable. Just please make them more than colored balls. Thanks.

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I'm also running ME, and that one tooltip does not work for me; it did once but never again since. Other tooltips, including others in µTorrent, display -- well, the one from the tray icon does reliably, and those from the toolbar icons do with a little sliding off and on a couple of times. But nothing brings up the tooltip from the status ball any more.

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Join the club, Firon. Maybe the text that is supposed to be in the status ball's tooltip could be added to the tooltip of the tray icon.

This use of one signal for the client as a whole instead of one for each torrent means that whenever you don't currently have an incoming connection, it's yellow, even if you aren't firewalled and can accept them. Now, you can always run the test in the connection wizard and find out for sure, so that's not a big problem.

The difficulty will be cognitive. The tracker where I'm a moderator probes for connectibility, so if you're connectible, your signal in a client like BitTornado or Azureus turns green right away when you accept the probe as a peer, and it stays green for the rest of that connection, even if you haven't had another user's peer connect to you yet. With µTorrent it probably flashes green for an imperceptible moment as the probe's peer connects and disconnects and then turns yellow again until you actually do get an incoming connection. When you're the last leecher on a dying torrent, that won't happen. So I expect a lot of "I know I'm not firewalled, and the tracker says I'm not, so why does utorrent [or Utorrent, or whatever they'll call the client instead of µTorrent] have a yellow ball?" and "why does utorrent's ball keep changing between yellow and green?"

I'm going to have to write up another standard answer and be prepared to send out lots of copies.

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I personaly prefered textual network status, but if icon is implemented it should be customizable as the rest of them, don't see the point having washed out color icons when we could get beauties like custom toolbars, status and tabs allready. It even doesn't fit with some of the custom skins apart users with eye problems reporting their reasons. Think about it before total denial, it's not a big deal if you let us customize those 3 simple icons, no? It won't change nothing to you, but it will to us and it will show your "customization" line is right there where it was before and where it should be.

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I do think the icons are good.

I dont think the icons should be customized, As they have a logical uniform purpose, Similar to the lights in BitTornado.

I do think they should be replaced with either BSH or lagnut's suggestions, so the symbols make up for the lack of color (for the colorblind) or popup (for the OS-challeneged users)

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Chaosblade: if by "popup" you mean "tooltip," Firon has added enough to the FAQ about them that the tooltip is superfluous. In fact, the FAQ's explanation is even better, because the one time I did get a tooltip, it was sketchy and left a question in my mind that the FAQ answers.

But helping the colorbind is still an issue (funny, it doesn't seem to have been for Azureus or BitTornado, that I know; of all the sets for BitTornado, only the deadpencils icons differ by more than color).

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I thought I would weigh in on this debate since I have a better perspective on this than most people - i.e. I am colour blind. I am specifically red-green colour blind (the most common), however it is slightly more complicated than this as there are several different kinds of red-green colour blindness. I have Protanopia and I am therefore unable to distinguish between colors in the green-yellow-red section of the spectrum (or more specifically I cannot discriminate light with a wavelength of 492 nm from white). In addition my sensitivity to light in the orange and red part of the spectrum is also reduced. This is why the condition is commonly known as red-green colour blindness. Can you see the number in this picture:

testprogamma1650wg.png

I can't - so if someone could give me a hint that would be appreciated ;) !

Anyway, back on topic, I have always had major problems with every bittorrent client in their default state, including µTorrent. Most use colours to signify different states e.g. deep, bright red for failures (which is usually fine) and then yellows and greens for some kind of warning and all OK message respectively. This is where I have a problem - I cannot tell the difference between the yellows and greens, that the makers of these programs use, very easily. This does depend on the shade used - sometimes I have no problem at all, sometimes I have a bit of trouble and sometimes the two colours appear identical to me. This is different for everyone who has colour blindness - i.e. even someone who has Protanopia like me may not have trouble where I do and vice-versa.

The only way to guarantee everyone (well every sighted person) using µTorrent is able to tell the difference between colours is to either use symbols or symbols and colours (the latter is probably prefrable), like this:

accept.pngerror.pngexclamation.png

networkstatus.png

Both of which are brilliant for me and also look aesthetically amazing (good work guys). I particularly like the top set, but that, unlike most of this post, is my opinion. I really hope these are put in (or the icon is made skinnable) as it would make a great deal of difference to my (and probably quite a few other people's) ability to use µTorrent easily. Software should always ensure that color-coding is never used as the only means of conveying information or indicating an action, although in this respect at least I can check the tooltip to see what is going on - but what if I didn't use a mouse (some disabled people don't)?

Just my 2 cents.

--Goose.

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