RSS Feed Bugs

[Geminiman]

It appears that both the current public version, beta and alpha all have the same issue where they're waiting 12 hours to download torrents from RSS that match even when they're set to "match always".

Further there are significant bugs in the RSS Downloader window that cause overwriting etc. on a random basis. you have to click around to make sure it's going to stick (this is all current versions as well).

In general the RSS Downloader window breaks so many rules of design and is incredibly hard to use. I would suggest that someone looks at it and fixes the myriad of issues:

1. The list isn't in alpha order and there is no way to sort it making finding one of your favorites almost impossible if you have a lot of them.

2. Editing the name of the favorite by hitting F2 or clicking on the text is non-intuitive and also leads to the issues with getting out of sync so you end up editing the wrong thing. There should be a Name field on the right above Filter settings that sets it and the list on the left should reflect whatever is typed on the right.

3. The Quality drop down is crazy. This should be a checked list with up and down preference arrows and should remember a default order for downloading. The way it is now is just a PITA.

4. There should be "Save and Close" and Apply buttons that save the current item and either close or allow you to move on. If you move to another item without applying it should prompt if you want to save your changes with a yes/no. (this is basic UI design in every OS)

This is GREAT functionality but it needs to be fixed so that it works consistently without a 12 hour delay AND the UI needs to be cleaned up and simplified to make consistent with standard UI dialogs on all major OSes and to make the interface more intuitive.

Just some friendly feedback. I've passed all of this by multiple other people that all agree so I know that I'm not just being a PITA.

Thanks again for a great product!

[rafi]

There is no 12 hour delay. whatever you see with the "?" button will be downloaded on your next update (unless you've set it to update every 12 hours... ).

All the rest is history (but true...)

[Geminiman]

So what seems to be happening is previous versions allowed you to just type in "Go On" and it would find it.

Now it's requiring the * at beginning and end. I'm also finding that the parsing that Utorrent is doing is broken and adding all kinds of crazy stuff to the filename which is also causing problems in some cases so I'm telling it now to match based on the original file name.

By doing so things are actually working again. Hope this helps someone.

Is anyone working on fixing the RSS window with the above?

[rafi]

Is anyone working on fixing the RSS window with the above?

As far as I know - no

Also, I suggest that you try to avoid feeds that use magnet links (and not .torrent file links), because of possible issues with starting some of them.

[cranberry]

I am having issues with every sunday utorrent automatically downloads a show called Robot Chicken and sets it to Force Download. I have never had this show set for download and I have been at the computer during an update when it suddenly just popped up.

Any idea why this may be happening?

[rafi]

And you have your RSS downloader not defined to auto load anything ?

[Geminiman]

Someone in DEV really needs to start hacking on the RSS code. IT works... badly but that's about all you can say. This stuff really needs to be fixed ASAP. (it also needs regular expression support)

[rafi]

(it also needs regular expression support)

I see you couldn't resist it... It does wok w/o out it too...

[Geminiman]

Ya, I had to. Sorry. When you're a programmer that understands Regex you fall in love

[pascal4]

My concerns are for one TESTING, it's hard to test match it against the RSS feed. I've haven't had a not web-dl condition since my feed usually posted only HDTV's so I ended up with several shows with hdtv and web-dl of the same episodes. This sorted out after doing some tests, but still. I knw And WEB-DL is not even in the list.

1. For sorting, you can drag'n'drop names and they get sorted.

2. Editing names it OK, RSS feeds are meant for people that know alt least this bit about their windows UI.

4. No apply-ok-cancel buttons, I like it this way but it needs to be improved.

And the final issue is type sticking, this happens when creating a new entry in RSS Download and entering the Filter, it's not sticking the first time. If I click on another entry and then back to the one just added I'll end up with a blank filter or the one it was after pushing Add. The UI should have more handlers for when editing so that when typing something it sticks after half a second of non-typing.

The Quality options to prioritize is a good idea.

All in all, the RSS window is meant to be a fast way to using an interface. It's a nice idea uT dev team, but it needs work.

[rafi]

WEB-DL is not even in the list

About that: The best wat would be to give the user a way to add his own list, like in the speed limiters.

But here it is, Ok it is missing. So what? Cann't you all just put the string in the filter ? It is not *that* hard. I do it for ages.

name*format1*|name * format2* etc.

[Geminiman]

1. For sorting, you can drag'n'drop names and they get sorted.

Manually moving things through a list is not sorting. Sorting is an automated process. This is nothing of the sort. :-P It needs to be fixed and default to alpha order.

2. Editing names it OK, RSS feeds are meant for people that know alt least this bit about their windows UI.

That's a silly excuse for a bad interface.

4. No apply-ok-cancel buttons, I like it this way but it needs to be improved.

Considering that it doesn't even work reliably the way it is and breaks every UI convention ever invented too it's not OK at all.

And the final issue is type sticking, this happens when creating a new entry in RSS Download and entering the Filter, it's not sticking the first time. If I click on another entry and then back to the one just added I'll end up with a blank filter or the one it was after pushing Add. The UI should have more handlers for when editing so that when typing something it sticks after half a second of non-typing.

It's not sticking because you have to create one, move to another one, then move back and then make changes. If you immediately edit the new one it won't save... because it doesn't have save, apply and cancel buttons so they're guessing when there is a change and there is a bug aside from the horrible interface.

Further resolutions need to be orderable and delayable.

All in all, the RSS window is meant to be a fast way to using an interface. It's a nice idea uT dev team, but it needs work.

The idea of the functionality is great! The execution is god awful. Whomever wrote it needs to take a UI design course cause they clearly haven't learned squat from using good software. If they had this interface wouldn't look anything like this. The sad thing is that this easy to design UI is butchered in every torrent client, most of them worse than uTorrent/BitTorrent which absolutely amazes me.

[pascal4]

Manually moving things through a list is not sorting

Call it manual sorting!

That's a silly excuse for a bad interface.

No, it's a good argument to not bloat the interface with for-dummies buttons.

Considering that it doesn't even work reliably the way it is and breaks every UI convention ever invented too it's not OK at all.

I said it needs to be improved, and give me a break with conventions, each owner designs its own interface the way he likes, uT has a good one BTW compared to the ton of crapware out there.

It's not sticking because you have to create one, move to another one, then move back and then make changes. If you immediately edit the new one it won't save... because it doesn't have save, apply and cancel buttons so they're guessing when there is a change and there is a bug aside from the horrible interface.

Nice, you just rewrote what I've said... now did you get the point? Anyway, naaaaahhh on the buttons. A simple event handler that saves when user clicks/tabs on a field to set event and then clicks out the save the content is sufficient. Or there are other methods the devs know, but this is a simple logic mistake and it can be fixed.

[...] most of them worse than uTorrent/BitTorrent which absolutely amazes me.

Hence why for me it's OK in uTorrent.

@rafi for the love of bitty, is that all you got left with from my post?

"So what?..." The what is: if that list is ever changing, it's not ideal to hard code it.

Give us a variable in advanced options and let us add what we need on top of the default values. The simpler way. An no, it's not hard to add more filters, just cumbersome. I've added two entries for the same show, one which downloads automatically the fast released HDTV's or other non-WEB-DL which are not tagged and one which adds the WEB-DL but doesn't download them, this way I don't screw up my ratio just because the same episodes were dl'ed in multiple formats.

[Geminiman]

To sum up "pascal4":

It's ok to have a sucky interface because everyone else's is more sucky.

Ya right. Improve now or someone is going to create one that doesn't suck and no one will use UTorrent/Bittorrent anymore and it will happen like lightening. Just ask Black Berry, Windows Mobile, and everyone else that was foisting crap in the mobile space when Apple came around. Just ask My Space when Facebook came along.

Stop making excuses for what everyone and their uncle can see is a horrible design written by someone that doesn't have a clue about UI design and demand they fix it.