LimeWire 3.9.2 Beta
 

The LimeWire 3.9.2 beta is released, with the pro version available from a link on your Pro download page, and the free version available from the LimeWire download page.

Changes in 3.9.2 include:
- Filters for search results!
- A brand new "community" search!
- Many more sources in search results!
- Improved firewall detection.
- Many code optimizations (submitted by Philippe Verdy).
- Upload Slot Memory, to ban greedy clients (submitted by Gregorio Roper).
- Use of a new X-Feature's header in uploads & downloads (submitted by Gregorio Roper).
- Revamped GWebCache handling (to stop hammering GWebCaches).
- MAGNET support on Linux and other Unix OSes. Just copy the magnet link to the clipboard and go back to LimeWire -- it will recognize the link and ask if you want to download the file.
- Revamped iTunes integration on OSX, to fix a possible cause of crashing (submitted by Roger Kapsi).
- Fixed many bugs related to the addition of icons in 3.9.1.
- Improved "reselection & view-moving logic" for when search results are pouring in.
- Fixed the spinning lime to stop spinning after a reasonable time.
- Fixed placement of popup menus (submitted by Roger Kapsi).

Please give this beta a heavy workout, and remember that none of the interface changes are set in stone, so you if have any suggestions, let us know! Comments on any bugs, problems, things that aren't intuitive, etc... are always welcome and appreciated.

There will be more betas with more features added as the 3.9 series progresses.

Thanks again to all open-sourcers and beta testers in helping to make LimeWire into the best file-sharing program worldwide.

Thanks,
- The LimeWire Team

Salut Sam, I like the new search interface a lot (I wasn't sure at first:p) The only thing to change is a more intuitive way of doing searches when you are already in one. For exemple, when you are doing a audio search and want to do a video one, it might be misleading to see "Audio -New Search"... Why not put all the search type icons in top so you select one to search or simply a "back to search option" button? Other than that, when you do search for an artist for exemple, the artist meta-data box will select the first artist appearing while I prefer seeing all the names for an artist, then select the one I want or none at all. Newbies willl ask why 12/75 results if they don't select anything.
Other than that I'm happy to see the changes rolling into the 4.0 release and the great help of open source LW developpers. Kudos to them and LW team.:cool:

À+

Congrats again--the community search is a really interesting idea. I thought it meant (intuitively) that it would search by country, or perhaps media type, but the 'new' idea is cool. The layout is easy on the eyes, but I'll need some more practise before I can work it comfortably.

I was surprised to see video returned the most "New" results. I guess the "gnutella is mostly for mp3's idea is being challenged.

some oddities--the window header showed "disconnected" for a long time after startup, even though I was connected as an UP and uploads were going on.

--.lit extensions only show in the "any type" filter--I'd expected them to show as "documents"

Glad to say I haven't seen those NPE's on the Monitor Pane yet (sorry--I tried :D )

And THANKS for the changelog and credits update. I realize such bookkeeping is tedious, but it's OH! so useful. I hope the opensource credits page will be updated soon--it's pretty out of date.

well--back to the workout. Sure is a time to celebrate the success of the project--the numbers on the netstats page just keep getting better.

btw--is there much hope that this beta will help with the connection problems (other than better firewall detection)?

can the magnetmix link be added to the Resource menu for pro users?

And--how can I send my appreciation to Adam for all the work he did, and best wishes for whatever he is doing now?

I don't like the in-search sorting at all. Not how it is now, it just clutters the screen, and takes up too much space. There needs to be an option to turn it off

Hi Spinner -- What do you mean by "in-search sorting". Do you mean the filter boxes on the left that let you narrow the search results, or something else? Is there somewhere else you think these would be better placed?

The Community search was internally designed as "What's New", but we thought community might be a better phrase -- the description can easily change. 'Any Type' community searches right now will provide the most results, but as people upgrade to the beta (and ultimately the 4.0 release), all searches will provide the same results. This is because 3.9+ includes a server-side change that tells people to only return files of the correct media type.

I also noticed some oddities with the window header showing disconnected for a bit longer than expected (it should only have a second lag at most, but it seems to be a bit longer sometimes). We'll look into what could be going on there.

The beta does include some changes that may help with the connection problems, although I don't think we're quite ready to start telling normal users to download the beta. Perhaps as we get closer to the final release.

As far as returning to a search from the filter boxes -- I'm personally a big fan of the text box, if only because after I perform one search, I generally want to perform another, and I like to start typing right away without having to click on anything. It is a process, though, to change the type of search ... we'll see if we can't find something to make that easier.

We're most likely going to provide an option that lets Pro users see the magnetmix link, but it will be off by default. Lots of Pro users complained, thinking that the button was an "ad" and they didn't want to see ads. Despite not all of us agreeing it was an ad, we listened and removed the button.

I'm sure Adam's lurking around somewhere, possibly reading these forums still. :)

"Upload Slot Memory, to ban greedy clients (submitted by Gregorio Roper)."

Meaning what clients? Limewire are starting to be really Un-friendly to Gnutella and im starting to not trust them... Im not sure if i will try the LimeWire 4.0.

Ohh...ohhh..... The narrow search feature, a MORPHEUS first, now in Limewire... Search power feature... a MORPHEUS first now in Limewire.

Clients requesting files every 5 seconds.

-1
offtopic

an addition to the filtering
 

i think you guys should consider adding another filter to the left side of the screen once you perform a search, that allows you to filter bitrate, lots of friends and myself only download certain bit-rate songs

one other thing
 

i just wanted you guys to know i dont or understand all the technical differences between this version and past versions, but i recieve like 5 times teh search results with this version compared to any past one. im loving it :) congrats!

Hi JeremyCDay -- Thanks for the compliments. :)

You can already choose to filter by bitrate by right-clicking or double-clicking on the filter's title and choosing Audio -> Bitrate (or any other kind of filter you want).

Let us know if there's anything visually that would make this more obvious.

Thanks!

Ha.. good idea Jeremy, sorting by bitrates in the search panel would be truly great!
So I give it +1 ;)

Bonne soirée

yeah im aware of the clicking on the title to organize by bitrate, i guess the point i was going after is theres some of us that know tthat no matter what they dont want a version of a song with a bit rate less then x (x being whatever you want it to be :) ) so by providing a way even if its a filter that only has 2 choices like 192 kbps and above and less then 192 kbps, it still would provide a similar innovative experience like the feature you guys just implemented in 3.9.2... as to where it goes from here who knows, just fiugred id set the idea on the table, possibly have it implemented in a beta and listen for peoples feedback on the idea

Just to clarify -- I didn't mean clicking on the bitrate column in the search results. I meant double-clicking or right-clicking on the title of the new filters on the left hand side (the titles of one of the three boxes, which for Audio searches default to Genre, Artist, and Album). You can change those filters -- for example, I routinely set them to Vendor, Speed and Type while debugging.

However, those filters are limited to only a single choice -- so you could limit your search results to displaying only bitrate 192 files (but it wouldn't include anything above 192). There are definite benefits to allowing a "greater than / less than" kind of filter. Unfortunately, the interface for such a feature is less than clear. Would the box that currently lists the possible choices instead be a panel that lets the user choose "equal to, greater than or less than" and then a specific number? If we can pin something down, this would be useful for file sizes as well...

Depending on how long it takes to work on some other features and how hard this is to conceptualize and code, it may or may not make it into the final release. We'll keep it in mind for future additions to the filtering system, though, if it isn't immediately included.

thats actually really close to something i was looking for being able to richgt click on that, its good that you in your last post brought it up, so maybe others that read this thread will learn about it too and spread the word :-P thanks for clarifying what you meant :)

Yes, the filter boxes. They're terrible annoying, and take up too much space. Need to be able to disable the feature

We'll be adding an option to turn them off in a future beta. It will most likely be in the View menu, as one of the Show/Hide options or as a seperate 'Enable/Disable Search Filters' item.

In the search results, when a line item has "multiple sources" available, I can not find a way to list the discreet sources any more.

There used to be a button/check box a few versions back, that went away, but double-clicking the roll-up item "opened" it and displayed the hosts.

Now double-clicking the item no longer works.

network niceness
 

I was just noticing that when multiple downloads are pending with "need more sources" and I perform a search that results in available sources, the software immediately sends requests for all the pending items to the new nodes.

This seems a little impolite and puts possibly needless load on the network and nodes. I think that at a minimum, there should be a buffer/delay between sending the requests. It would probably be better if there were some logic involved that would use one item as a test case, and only if appropriate positive responses are received, that the remaining requests would be sent, again with delays/testing.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, Gerard.

Any time search results come in, they are compared against all existing downloads, and if the result exactly matches the download in progress, it is added to that download as a possible source. If the matching download currently has no sources then it will realize a source is available and begin to download from it.

re: matching
 

If you have a node found in a search which has exact matches for multiple pending downloads, all of the requests for all of the pending downloads are sent at once.

ex:
pending DLs for file1, file2, file3, file4, file5

new search yields a node that has file1,file2, and file4

Limewire will immediately sends a request to the hosting node for transfer to start on all three files. It does this for all three at the same time (within a fraction of a second).

It seems to me that in such a situation, there should be a stagger/time delay to help avoid overloading the remote node with too many requests.

I was further suggesting that perhaps one request should be sent and the result tested. If the remote node refuses to start the transfer, the others should not have requests sent from the searching node. If the remote node does start sending, or provides a queue position, then the other file requests should be sent in succession following the same logic.

To continue the example:

I send transfer request for file1 (keeping track that I also want to request file2 and file4 from the same node) to the remote node and await a response. I get none. File1 is set to "need more hosts" or whatever, the remaining file (2 and 4) are also set to the same status and requests are never sent for them, or at least not at that moment.
If the node does indeed start sending the file, then the same procedure is followed for the next file (file2). and then for file4 if file2 is started.

Basically it comes down to queueing requests locally instead of just spewing them in any number on to the network and hoping for the best.

Ahh -- now I understand what you mean. Yes, better control of downloading multiple files from a single host is indeed something useful and something we plan on adding. I don't think it will make it into this beta series, but it definitely is on our list of things-to-do.

'Browse host' in 3.9.2
 

In 3.9.2, it sppears that the 'Browse host' command on the RMB is greyed out except when the host has enabled Chat. IIRC, with 3.8.7 one oculd browse a host regardless of whether they had emabled Chat or not.

Silly but annoying feature of limewire pro 3.9.2 :-

Click in the search box to enter text and the box moves down one line and to the left - no big problem just irritating and unnecessary.

3.9.3 includes a fix for this, among many other things.