lottanzb team mailing list archive

[Marcel de Vries <marceldevries@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>> == Overall ==
>> Default window size: current size seems fine, depending on how we
>> want to implement the history feature
>
> Agreed.

+1

>> == Menus ==
>> Is there no way to get the warnings sabnzbd gives? it may sometime
>> offer valuable information. how does the web gui gets the warning?
>
> SABnzbd indeed offers only warnings through the API - but those
> messages are what the user is interested in anyway, so we can still
> have the message log window that simply mashes LottaNZB's and
> SABnzbd's messages up chronologically.

See my comment on the shutdown plug-in.

>> == Toolbar ==
>> I think the "Up" and "down" buttons should stay, I know you can drag n
>> drop but I use them some times.
>
> That's right. Not all people might know that LottaNZB supports drag
> and drop. The two buttons are certainly still better than the ugly
> index dropdown buttons in SABnzbd's web interface.
>
>> We may add a button that pause a single download. Another button
>> needed is for the "shutdown" feature we discussed earlier.
>
> We need to be careful on how many buttons we have in the toolbar. I
> would rather not have more than we have right now. The shutdown
> feature will be part of a plug-in. The question is how this plug-in
> will change the main window (menus, toolbars, or whatever).

The shutdown functionality definitively should become part of a plug-in,
which could add a menu item to File/Edit or a new one (a plug-in can create
a new menu button right?). Or perhaps a toolbar item with a dropdown
list for the
actions available.

The "Up" and "Down" buttons should stay as it is a necessary thing for the
usenet world. Drag & Drop is there, but I think buttons are more
straightforward.

The "Clear finished" button could be moved to the "Edit" menu though,
maybe even the "Up" and "Down" buttons could go there.

>> == Infobar ==
>> I like the way the infobar is now, but we may want to add a status bar
>> that show some more info like free space and some more download
>> stats.
>
> We'll probably have a "Statistics" window, but of course the main
> window should still display the information users are generally
> interested in:
>
> - Speed
> - Overall time left (and/or ETA) and size left
> - Current download: Time left and size left (display this one within
> the download list? At least close to the actual download!).
> - Diskspace (?)

Agree with almost everything except the diskspace item. I'm not sure
if it's relevant to be shown in the main window, as SABnzbd should
handle it. Just had a talk with one of the devs and he said SABnzbd
supports to stop at a certain threshold, say 2GB. It it could be potentially
retrieved from SABnzbd's API. But such info isn't available through the
API as of yet. _IF_ it gets implemented though, LottaNZB could just
give a message or something that downloading and/or processing has
stopped because of low diskspace.

>> == Download list ==
>> don't see much need to change it, it's looks good and very easy to
>> understand. maybe just add a row that show the chosen post
>> download operation. I think other options and info should be available
>> by the right click menu or by a dialog that opened when a download is
>> double clicked. The dialog should display all the files in the nzb and
>> offer the possibility to remove files or change download order,
>
> We'll definitely add a "Details" window that can be opened by
> double-clicking on a download using a right-click ->
> Properties/Details. This window will also have a tab that lists all
> files in the NZB, the group where it was posted, may be the NFO file.
>
> It's right that the current layout is simple and easy to understand.
> It's not so flexible though and more difficult for plug-ins to extend.
> Theoretically, this would be something that could be put off to a
> future release if it proves to be hard to design and implement.
>
> I don't think that we should make the "post-download operation"
> feature too prominent. Basically, it should be easy to change the
> default behavior from within LottaNZB's preferences window. I'd rather
> not display it in the download list (or only if it differs from the
> default for individual downloads). One could add an entry to the
> rightclick menu and/or the properties window that allows the user to
> override the default.

Definitely a +1 for the "Details" window. It should have tabs though,
like "Files", "Information" and "NFO".

>> == History ==
>> We may want to have another listview below download listview for
>> showing the history. It can show details of the last 5 nzb's downloaded
>> and present a link that will open a dialog with all the history records.
>
> That would indeed be a solution. I'm not so sure about the "below
> download listview" idea though. While waiting in the queue, a download
> gradually moves to the top of the queue and is then downloaded. But it
> will move to the middle/bottom of the application window after that.
> :-/ A solution where completed downloads just vanish to a "History"
> tab isn't that great either, as users generally want to do something
> with a completed download... and not look it up in a secondary list.
>
> If a complete download contains a single video file, one could make it
> easy to launch the video directly from within LottaNZB (may be in
> future versions).

Hmm this is a hard one. Maybe keep only the last download item on the
top in the download-list? For example, I'm downloading A, B and C;
if A has finished, it stays in the top as finished. Then B finished,
A is 'removed' from the download-list and B stays on top with there
finished status with the downloading item beneath it (second position).
Maybe it should be a separate window like the "Details" window?
Accessible from the menu: File > History (???) Got the menu idea
from synaptic though.. The window from synaptic isn't that well suited
for out purposes though.

Anyway so far my inspiration...
Marcel