AquaLime 250 beta - HUGE!

[MamiyaOtaru]

I have just put out AquaLime 250. It is beta, for reasons I'll explain below.

The biggest new feature is HUGE. This is a hashing implementation that will become the gnutella standard. With it, Bitzi.com will become the sharereactor of Gnutella. Also, AquaLime now has a browse host feature. Unfortunately, both of these features only work with other clients that have them. At first they will not make much difference for you, but as more people get their LimeWire clients up to date, it will become increasingly useful.

I have added the 'download any' button back in. LimeWire removed it because most people don't know what it does. I myself just barely found out, and it is cool. Hard to explain though. I'll try with an example. Say you search for a song. You get 5 different results, with slightly different filesizes. You want one, but don't care which, you just want one of them to finish.

Normally, I would start all of them, and once one finished, I'd cancel the others. Download Any takes care of it for you. You select all the files, hit Download Any, and it makes sure that you get one, and exactly one, of the files. It tries one, and if it fails tries the next. It cycles through until one finishes, then cancels the rest. Sweet.

Another 'feature' I've put it:
On the connections tab, I hate it how the connections you've had the longest scroll to the bottom. As connections come and go above them (causing the total number to go up and down) the stable ones on the bottom bounce rapidly up and down (mostly when your client is searching for new connections). I hate that, so I made it so they scroll the other way. Your stable connections are now on the top, and they don't move around anymore. Again, dunno if I can explain it well enough, but it really looks better to me.

Finally, I borrowed an idea from FreeWire (the horror). In FreeWire, when you start to download something, the star graphics in the search screen turn green, to show you it has started downloading. I like this idea, especially since AquaLime has the downloads on a seperate tab. This way, you can see right away that the download has started, without having to change to the transfers tab to make sure. Of course, I improved on their implementation. In FW, the stars don't immediately change color, it can take quite a while (it has to wait for something else to refresh the pane). in AL, they change immediately. And in AL, they are arrows instead. oooh ;)

LimeWire has not released 250 yet, but it is in the CVS. They have not released it due to a couple bugs. I have them fixed, so AquaLime 250 is out. (actually, I'm guessing at the number. Since this version of LW isn't out yet, who knows what the number will be. maybe 3.0 lol) I fixed all the major ones I could find, but there may be more. It's hard for me to test on a modem. Thus, this is a beta. But know that I am fairly sure it's stable. Please tell me if you get any weird messages.

Also, when you first start, it will take all your CPU as it hashes the files in your library (like eDonkey does) It will only do this the first time (or any time you add a huge number of new files at once) In search and the library, you can right click and do a bitzi search to see what info they have. If there is none yet, bitzi tells you how to submit it. Don't submit bad info to Bitzi please Luckily there is feedback, so if a file is fake, the comments from angry people who were duped will tip you off.

[Roamerick]

I'm surprised HUGE is already coming in, I ha a feeling it would not have been implemented fior a while yet... But great news!! It's about time Gnutella caught up with the donkey on the weblink/hash front!

So well done indeed, I'll give your client a run despite the fact that I'm generally pretty anti-limewire. Do you know how many other gnutella clients are planning to implement HUGE, and when? I heard Gnucleus was thinking about it, maybe now that the cat's out of the bag it will be adopted more quickly by everyone.

Anyway, later ;)

[Roamerick]

Very nice, couple of bugs though...

1) Downloads stop at "Downloading from 0 hosts" when at 100%, they don't officially complete (although the file is there and accessible)

2) Requeries are at something like 300 seconds? Is that right?

3) The down arrow icon on the file open dialog is massivey pizellated in the Aqua skin. Probably the wrong size arrow :)

Pretty minor stuff, otherwise it looks very decent - But I can't wait to see HUGE in action!

[MamiyaOtaru]

Thanks for the heads up on the downloads. I'll watch for it.

Yeah, that crappy down arrow hehe. It's set up right now to use the same down arrow as the one on the scrollbars, which is pretty small. I'll look at having it use a different one. Luckily the open dialog isn't used all that much..

Thanks for your observations :)

AFAIK, most major gnutella clients are planning on implementing it. Gnucleus for sure, BearShre (but who cares) and others I'm sure. Phex may (speculation here) there is a folder in the code called 'Bitzi' so they may be planning to take advantage of it as well.

[Roamerick]

Tell me something - how can I actually use the bitprint links on bitzi.com?

[MamiyaOtaru]

That's a good question. It may not be possible yet. So far it seems to be a one way street. You see a file, and look it up on Bitzi. It isn't yet possible to see a bitprint on Bitzi, and search for it on LimeWire. That capability is coming though, and is a lot closer now that LimeWire hashes.

[Roamerick]

Bitzi uses a URN for the bitprint hash, which could be searched for. it's in the form:

urn:bitprint:24KHHQAHQBPOPJDKXWFOHM32XWNOGHSG.VSI5 EKUHME23P3Z6KN7TDV6SC3JCJGZUYGVMCRA

Couldn't a "search for bitprint hash" feature be implemented? Oh and see if you can figure out what file this is ;)

[Roamerick]

Just wanted to make you aware of another little bug: Aqualime doesn't always recognise when the same file is already being downloaded.

A correct implementation of the hashing system should prevent this. At the moment, one can download the same file under different names at the same time!

Oh and also killed downloads will come back on the next restart. Especially the ones which I had to kill because they were finished (see post above).

But keep it up, this is a great little program!

You can tell me to shut up btw ;)

[MamiyaOtaru]

'tis a beta ;)

I have updated some files since it was uploaded, and I am seeing those problems you mentioned a lot less now. I am uploading it now, I'll be back to say when it's up and available.

About it still downloading the same file with different names: you and I and the other 30 or so who have DLed AquaLime 250 are currently about the only people with a HUGE enabled client. You can't hash a file that's on someone else's computer :) That's why I said HUGE won't be a bit help at first, but will become so as more people upgrade.

When search results aren't hashed (cause no one has a client that is hashing them yet) your client will fall back on comparing file sizes and names.

To really kill off downloads from coming back, delete downloads.dat in the incomplete directory. Hopefully this will not be necessary with the updated beta I'm uploading now. It might be nice to do once though, to get yourself a clean slate.

Thanks for the feedback, no need for you to shut up ;)

[MamiyaOtaru]

As promised, next version is up.

I'm sure there will be a search for bitprint hash search feature. I'll poke around it :)

[Rickio]

I have tried to get your new version and cannot seem to get it of the unitethecows website. Is there another place I can get it from?

[Roamerick]

Well MO, I downloaded the updated version from UTC and it seems to have solved at least the most immediate problems of killed download restarting and downloads not completing.

I look forward to the next update! But tell me - how closely familiar are you with the Limewire code? I mean are you coding at a lavel whereby you could actually pump in new features, or are you more on a "tweaking" basis?

Great job anyway ;)

Oh and here's something I've just become aware of: Swabby, author of Gnucleus, has just stated that Gnucleus has has full HUGE support since version 1.7.5 (Gnucleus is currently at 1.8.0.2). It uses the SHA1 hashing method.