µTorrent 2.0 released

1.8.x like tstatus.bmp (RSS icon updated, thanks emc)

http://www.utorrent.com/Skins/download/id/1203

http://www.utorrent.com/skins/index/category/status?order=newest&limit=20

Complete set of µTorrent 1.8.1 skins (toolbar, tstatus, tabs):

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=441821#p441821

@Seyss

Looks like Apple or Microsoft crap. "Lets make the icons as big and kid-like as we can!".

One of the reasons, (no it's not the top) for sticking with uTorrent is it's stuck with itself for so long. I always new what to expect with each new update. That they'd fix issues quickly, and leave the general interface alone.

Please, uTorrent, BitTorrent, et al, keep in mind you have one of the MOST STABLE and uniquely consistent layouts in the torrent community. Stop trying to mess it up.

Not to leave out the issue raised earlier; what about those with disabilities who grew dependent on YOUR superior software. I'm extremely photo-sensitive (can't stand bright lights) with split cones. I wear prescription tinted sunglasses when using my computer, they're a deep shade of blue and violet. I'll vouch for issues to the colour blind as I can see the difference, or not see as it was, in icon colours through my glasses. Really, you need to consider ALL issues on such major changes.

As a side note, skip the ribbon that so many are migrating to. The only reason I can use any of the ribbon bar software (Office 2007/Paint/WordPad) on Windows 7 is because the shortcut key commands still work. I can't see the difference in the icons/tabs through my glasses. Keep in mind that's been a HUGE issue for Microsoft. Infact, it's the ONLY major complaint levelled against Win7/Off07.

How about implementing more accurate speed reading. e.g. instead of it being 1.1mB/s why not add another digit to it so it can show 1.15mB/s. just like it is before the speeds reach 1mB

When starting from a magnet link the incomplete files does not get the ".!ut" appendix.

(Sorry if this has been covered recently.)

@Some of the people complaining about the new skin:

[rant]Jeez people, it's a freaking skin. I can't see why it's received the kind of reaction it has (to paraphrase, "zomg its so ugly cant believe it go back go back"). rafi and emc have been working hard to make the old skin available to use; if you prefer them, use them! There's a reason you can skin the thing in the first place. I won't say I'm a fan of the new icons myself, but to call them "kid-like" without any further explanation? And are you seriously comparing it to some paradigm shift like the Ribbon interface? (Which, by the way, was based on well-tested usability and usage research, and even many once-detractors end up preferring Ribbons over menus after a while anyway -- non-argument)

Colorblindness? The interface never was colorblind friendly to begin with -- not even the old icons. Red-green colorblindness is the most common form of colorblindness, and yet I don't see you complaining here about how people can't figure out the difference between the upload/download lines on the Speed graph, or an errored upload status icon vs a normal upload status icon in the old status icons. If you want us to consider all possibilities, why aren't you yourself considering this possibility?

If you're going to try and make a case for changing the icons back (or to change them to something else), that's perfectly fine (really, I wouldn't be against it). But don't pick out things that can easily be argued about for the old skin (colorblindness), and don't just throw around unsubstantiated and subjective criticisms ("kid-like" or just plain old "ugly").

@lostinlodos: "Stop trying to mess it up." Really? Then here's my suggestion to you: don't be so obtuse. Do you seriously think anyone's trying to mess anything up? Are you telling us that things should never ever change because it would make things "unstable"? I guess we should all switch back to and stick with µTorrent 1.0's icons. Or stop working on µTorrent altogether. Or whatever other extreme action I can just as easily imagine you coming up with, based on your "arguments". To be honest, posts and quotes like these would be counterproductive in convincing anyone to do anything.

Your issue with poor accessibility of the new skin at least has some basis in fact, but IMO, that's not a problem that should be dealt with through the default skin anyway, because fixing colors for one form of colorblindness might break colors for another form of colorblindness anyhow. What are we supposed to do? Make all icons grayscale or monochrome by default instead? No, it's better left up to customizability of the skins.[/rant]

@lostinlodos: Don't take this rant personally. Your post just struck a chord in the wrong way (not so much because of any kernel of truth, but mostly because of the attitude).

Yeah. I just unleashed some pent up frustration after seeing so many complaints from users about the new skin, with nary a bit of constructive or reasonable criticism. Again, this isn't to say that complaints aren't welcome. But don't keep repeating the same exact non-arguments. Please make your reasons more concrete.

Want someone to start it off? Here we go.

[ul][li]lostinlodos says it's "kid-like". In what way? Well presumably because the start, pause, stop, and queue buttons (and maybe the RSS icons) are relatively bubbly. There's no way anyone can argue that the other icons are "kid-like". How do we fix this? By making the offending buttons more consistent with the other non-offending buttons in quality. Not rounding the corners might be a good start.

[/li][li]To expand on that, inconsistency is a major issue with the skin, and consistency is very important when trying to design a skin. Even the shading for icons isn't consistent. Some icons have very smooth gradient shading with matte coloring (like the Add Torrent from URL toolbar icon, or the Pieces tab icon), while others have a glossy look (like the start/stop/etc buttons, or the General tab's icons). This should be looked into. Now, I'm by no means a designer (whether by trade, or by hobby), but as I understand it, when people are making a theme, they pick out an idea and a design principle by which to guide them in the process -- maybe whoever designs the default skin should consider this.

[/li][li]The icons have very finely outlined edges, which in and of itself isn't a problem, but that makes it easy to see extreme aliasing on the icon edges. Example? Preferences button's icon. So apply some antialiasing/smooting to the skin's edges, or something. (Just make sure you don't blur entire icons to oblivion) If it's hard to get it right, then maybe the icons are a bit too packed with details, and you should ease up on the lines a bit.

[/li][/ul]

_{Disclaimer: This entire post is a reflection of my opinions only, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of BitTorrent Inc.}

@Ultima: take it easy... they are just icons... I was propably the one that (almost) started it http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=441626#p441626 . I could not find anything in your note that relates to my comments (and I hope it was "reasonable"...).

About "constructive" - most comments are a matter of taste. Also some people probably just got used to the old artwork. No one has to justify his personal taste... So, I think uploading a set of the old icons (I cooperate with emc on that ...) was very constructive.

Now, it would have been nice and considerate of the devs to post a note/link to the previous-release uploaded icons with this RC or the upcoming release. Then, I'm sure, no one will complain ...

I have absolutely no problem with your efforts (along with emc's). In fact, I recognize and applaud it in my post.

Regarding taking it easy...

Jeez people, it's a freaking skin. I can't see why it's received the kind of reaction it has (to paraphrase, "zomg its so ugly cant believe it go back go back").

...

Yeah. I just unleashed some pent up frustration after seeing so many complaints from users about the new skin, with nary a bit of constructive or reasonable criticism.

I don't know how else to word it. Again, I said above that I myself am not a fan of the new artwork, but I did take it easy by just using it and figuring out what problems I had with it. My rant wasn't about the skin itself -- it was about the lack of constructive complaints railed against it. lostinlodos's post was the proverbial straw the broke the camel's back.

I understand completely that it's difficult to formulate concrete complaints about abstract ideas like artwork (and was planning on editing in such a note in my above post), but if people just took the time to figure out why they disliked it, it would be infinitely more helpful to people who work on the design than just "ew." It doesn't have to be a conscious effort for users to draw up reasons they dislike it. Just using it and realizing specifics along the way would be enough.

If the user really can't stand the overall design ("kid-like") enough to even bother trying it for a while, then they should mention how the skin is kid-like instead of making readers guess. Really, if the entire style doesn't suit you, then that's what skinnability is for, because there's no fix for complete objection to a style other than to replace it entirely. The default isn't getting forced onto anyone. One man's junk is another man's treasure, and the saying applies extremely well here. Just because you liked the old skin doesn't mean everyone else liked the old skin -- otherwise, there wouldn't be hundreds of skins uploaded to the skins repository in the first place -- so why must the old skin be kept? All of his complaints can apply equally well to Operanized too.

The one gray area is with the colorblindness issue, which I won't fault lostinlodos completely for, but as explained above, rolling back to the old skin won't fix that aspect of the UI either.

To Reiterate:

I am not trying to stifle complaints. I am trying to promote complaints that could help the designer improve the icons. A pretty scathing rant was (IMHO) in order to set people straight.

NEW SKIN

The only one exception what I have is a style of START icon/button (two arrows).

I think an older "PLAY" style was more readable / understandable.

But it is matter of opinion... and I prefer Aquazureus toolbar

I use these skins and I don't ask for change anything...

Everyone can chose from here what prefer: http://www.utorrent.com/skins

I think the change from the play button to the up/down button also presents a bit of a consistency problem. There is a pause and stop button that is reminiscent of old "standards" set (probably?) by VCR controls, but for whatever reason, only the button to start the torrent was changed. If the idiom isn't going to change completely, I think it probably shouldn't change at all.

If I had to venture a guess as to why it was changed at all, I'd say that it was probably to match up the toolbar icon with the status icons. "Play" doesn't match with up/down arrows used for seeding/downloading, so it was probably changed because of that. Or maybe "play" would get in the way of that whole streaming idea where you're actually playing videos.

XP SP3 machine, running 1.8.5 fine since release, decided to upgrade to RC2. Not doing anything fancy, just 3 torrents currently downloading, but RAM usage was climbing fast, watched it in task manager get to around a gig used, then poof, utorrent closed and the process disappeared without so much as a warning. FWIW... before it closed i managed to get a look at the disk statistics on the speed tab and it was using less than 10MB.

@ultima: lovely rant btw see not much has changed here... I don't suppose adding a "skinning" section to preferences has been suggested much? Not requesting the feature btw, the way the program looks doesn't bother me

and to more serious stuff... After discussing this with alus, I still see a probable bug with the bt.tcp_rate_control (speed balancer):

It appears that when running with the defaults: tcp_rate_control=true, Download limit=0, bandwidth control = true (transp_disposition=15) it drops the TCP speed considerably ... It also drops the speed about 10% when there IS a download speed limit!

Test conditions:

* ISP/connection cap = ~330K

* ping to google: ~140ms (and google server IP can vary qne be 80-200 msec [Europe-US] away from here depending on your luck... )

Example 1:

*peers - mix of TCP-uTP peers

* DL speed limit - varies: 330->0--------------------------->

* tcp_rate_control: false------>true-------------false->

speed graph: http://img37.imageshack.us/i/16174999.png/

Example 2:

* peers - 1 fast, TCP, local "ISP cache"

- others - slow, mostly uTP

* DL speed limit - varies: 360->330-------330->360->0--------->

* tcp_rate_control: false------>true----------------false-->

peers' list/speeds w/o tcp_rate_control: http://img37.imageshack.us/i/72289460.png/

peers' list/speeds with tcp_rate_control: http://img682.imageshack.us/i/32398269.png/

speed graph: http://img37.imageshack.us/i/99754373.png/

Note: this does not happen with UTP only or TCP only settings (trans_disposition = 5/10)

I think it should be fixed ASAP!

1. - to work properly with DL limit = 0

2. - to not degrade speed performance

Or, at lease - for now - put false as the tcp_speed_control default.

Ping to google (209.85.227.147):

http://img6.imageshack.us/i/53338087.png/

Edit: (add 2 more examples With ping times)

Example 3:

* peers - 1 a bit faster, TCP, local "ISP cache"

- others - mixed tcp, uTP

note: at this time of day - the ISP does not cap international traffic so the cache-peer is only about 25% of the total!

* DL speed limit - varies: 330-------------->0------------------>

* tcp_rate_control: false------>true---------------------->

peers' list/speeds with tcp_rate_control: http://img138.imageshack.us/i/72731964.png/

speed graph: http://img691.imageshack.us/i/33464649.png/

http://img695.imageshack.us/i/45785233.png/

Ping log: http://pastebin.com/f6ad7dff3 (notes inside search for "start" )

Example 4: ( expecting ISP capping of most international peers)

* peers - 1 fast, TCP, local "ISP cache"

- others - slow, mostly uTP

* DL speed limit - varies: 0-------------------->330---------------->

* tcp_rate_control: true----------------------------false------>

peers' list/speeds tcp_rate_control = true ,DL speedlimit = 0: http://img81.imageshack.us/i/19141002.png/

peers' list/speeds tcp_rate_control = true, DL speedlimit = 330K: http://img215.imageshack.us/i/99012483.png/

speed graph: http://img215.imageshack.us/i/92926041.png/

Ping log: http://pastebin.com/f4e552e1a

@Ultima I believe people, including me, are just wondering why did you guys change a great skin if nobody was complaining? (I personally haven't heard anyone complaining).

Thanks for the skins emc!

well, whoever wants the old ones back, can just upload them now from the skins pages/site... it's as simple as that...

@icleolion: Heya, long time no see Yeah, every now and then, I burst out with a huge rant because of how a discussion is progressing (or not progressing), as usual, but I'm hoping others see it as being a reasoned rant, and not just a random outburst. Users have actually requested a skin manager of sorts before, and even some way to pack the skins together into single theme packs for easier changing of themes, but I don't know what the statuses are on those requests.

@Seyss: People always complain about skin changes. They simply move on because they can skin it anyway, which is why you no longer see any complaints about them anymore -- it's already blown over. Need a few examples of people complaining about the old toolbar?

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=163206#p163206

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=169636#p169636

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=177944#p177944

Admittedly, there weren't as many complaints about the old toolbar as there are about this new one, I'll give you that, but there were complaints nevertheless. Only a guess, but maybe part of the reason it was better received may be that that ludde used a skin that was already relatively well accepted by the community, designed by a well respected designer in the community (Operanized by BSH/savaden).

I don't know why a change was deemed necessary, but having no complaints about the old skin isn't necessarily a reason to keep it either. If the devs/designer(s)/product managers felt like they needed a visual refresh, then that's usually reason enough (not like they're trying to run the thing into the ground). The only thing we can do is help them along in polishing it. Unless, of course, they feel like it's a lost cause, and decide to revert. Dunno, but I think they get the point -- a lot of people are complaining about the new skin (bold to emphasize it for them ;D). It's time to give them reasons why, and let them decide whether they want to go back want wait to refresh in another release, or push forward with this new toolbar for 2.0.

Dunno what's causing it, uT keeps hanging and using a ton of CPU on me. I made some minidumps (I think two were made with /bigdump): http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=dd096a9fc74eefe0ab1eab3e9fa335ca7ca684241da8e910

I think it should be fixed ASAP!

1. - to work properly with DL limit = 0

2. - to not degrade speed performance

Or, at lease - for now - put false as the tcp_speed_control default.

I agree, the setting does not seem to work right for everyone so default off would be better, specially for people that never touches the advanced settings.

How updating helpfile in near time, cause there are too many new preferences

Offtop:

many people = many preferences xD

IMO this shin should be default, but NVM

nice will be doing some cleaning in Skins, like seeing only compatible skins with newest stable branch, cause there are too many incompatible skins for old uT

@Ultima

If it came across as somekind of negative attitude that wasn't the intention. I was just really taken aback by the sudden, and personally unwanted (not to mention undocumented in the "new update available note) shift to the new icons. I could understand if it was implimented in the earliest 2.x alpha, or if it was done in a later 2.x to 3.x build move. But at a 2.xxx to 2.xxx move it wasn't at all expected.

It's not even the new icons so much as the total lack of warning, and it IS a rather noticeable change. Utorrent was just the current program that made a "shift" in design.

EMC has done all of use a great favour by posting the original icons. End of issue for me. (Thanks, again, BTW)

Since skin-ability isn't a primary note on the download page, I didn't even know it WAS skinable until I got to this thread.

As a total aside, issue of note:

I've been toying with Office 2007 since pre-beta; and with Of2010 currently. The ribbon is the biggest non-technical complaint that gets discussed on the MSDN and partner's forums regarding office 2k7 and now 2010. The "classic menu" 3rd party add-in is the number-one selling (listed #1 by popularity) plug-in for 2k7. So despite the "getting used to it" point, many didn't/won't. It's all a matter of preference, like icons, colours, and anything else. Some like it, some don't.

@Rafi and Mr. Ultima

http://gyazo.com/b6808f89d2f1c3893816c0eec6ee33fa.png

sou wery stability

thf for good wor

have a conf

http://gyazo.com/e97ef3170396ce0be0938b25a270c96a.png

http://gyazo.com/bca79e339aa51662c333def351988c7c.png

http://gyazo.com/fee11890a5878fbdb9c19cdaaf95c551.png

http://gyazo.com/9a8acbc65aa304ec0ead40b0ef95bcea.png

http://gyazo.com/c6ce6ec7b4e96b6c4f7482dc208aac04.png

http://gyazo.com/522f8d5ef1c3e4f8aa7517381feef713.png

http://gyazo.com/abf3fab769628b7bb45f4a2a74e23afc.png

@lostinlodos: Keep in mind that often in software development, the last things to be finalized are the UI elements, whether it be artwork, or localization strings.

huh? i like the new icons. its a refreshing change and feels like we are not living indefinitely in the same time period. keep up the good work.

In RC2 version of utorrent 2.0, I haven't found the "start torrent" button in the toolbar, to start the torrents, it have dissapeared, and I have that start torrents with right button menu, is a bug or is part of the new "look"?, the new icons don't dislike me, but I miss the "start torrent" button, I hope that new release come back it.

Thanks.

try looking harder, and you will find it... OR put this toolbar.bmp with your .dat files - to get it back...

http://www.utorrent.com/Skins/download/id/1197

edit:

F1 cannot open & download utorrent-help.zip EVEN if it does exist

[2009-12-29 21:41:44] Help file not found in settings directory, attempting to download

[2009-12-29 21:41:44] Could not download help file. Error: can't open file

spapok,

Your advanced settings are hostile and should not be suggested to anyone.

bt.connect_speed is the number of outgoing peer/seed connection attempts PER SECOND. Ideally, this shouldn't be over 10.

net.max_halfopen defaults to 8 for a reason. 800 is too much!

Incoming connections are not counted as part of bt.connect_speed or net.max_halfopen.

net.utp_target_delay is how much uTorrent is allowed to increase your connection's pingtimes. 4000 milliseconds (4 seconds) will make internet access very laggy.

You are probably on ADSL and have your upload speed max (as shown in your first picture) set far beyond what is possible for your connection. Most ADSL ISPs don't even give 1 megabit/second upload speed max.