Few things that REALLY need to be changed

hi,
ive just got to run the client, and didnt informed me about the topic of self-controlling circuits and so on in advance. so i am a completely fresh noob, and i think with this i represent most of the users that are running distributed computing projects.

i wanted to post few of my first impressions i got, and i think most of the users that try to run the client will think the same.

1. How i found the project:

www.rechenkraft.net <-- a german page with a huge list of distributed computing projects and screens, descriptions and so on...
ive tried to find a project that will help research to develop future hard/software. as concequence out of that projects like chessbrain where not in my list.
in former times i let climateprediction work on my pc, but that took to much ressources form my machine (especially ram), so i seared for another project.
Finnaly my decision was to try DHE



2. first problems:

ok, i browsed the project page, and first searched for screens of the client but found none :-/
the download page itself was a bit frustrating to me because i couldn really figure out which version would be the right for my pc (does the gui steal gui performance...? and so on)
ok, finally i choosed the non-gui version, installed it, everything worked fine, until i started the client the first time and nothing happend. no notification tray icon, no splash screen, no CPU usage...
i then decided to install the gui vesion, to get at least a look at the error message the client should give out.
the installation of the gui version worked fine, but was a bit complicated.
ive started the gui version via batch file and get the error that the server would be down. after trying to connect for 10 hours i checked the forum and the FAQ.
arrived at this point i SURELY would have cancelled the efforts to get the client run, if i would not have been interested in the topic...

one day later (today) the massage arrived that a firewall blocked the server and now everything works fine


3. client issues:

sorry, but IMO there are many problems that are not solved good in the GUI
- no try icon (i dont want to have alway 2 windows on top of my desktop (command line, gui)
- unnecessary informations (which noobs which only want to support the project needs this information)???:

Quote:

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- this :bonk: graphic, it is not obviously for me htf they should represent...



4. Suggestions:

- Better installation program (choose wether gui, non gui)
- account creation (every user can create a unique account with a nick, with his islands combined under his nick)
- tray icon (absolut necessary to hide the status windows, with the ability to start the gui at each time)
- new modern multilangual website, with better structured information (maybe i can care for that)
- ability to switch all visual options and informations on/off
- tooltip description for the fileds in the gui




ok, that are many hard words from a damn noob :) , but as i said thats the way i think many other users will think too. if this points are improved, i think the project could gain many new users.

PS: pls tell me if you would be interested in a new homepage. maybe i could code one, but i would need the webspace with php/mysql support, and ppl who translate the page in different languages (i could do german)

PPS: sry for my bad english ;)

greez PlanetScorp

I tried to generate interest in this client via my mostly abandoned livejournal, but the only person who tried it had such troubles with the client, not knowing whether it was running or not, having troubles with client priority on their relatively slow system, and so on that they abandoned the project [highly frustrated because of an incomplete uninstall - which is a partially known issue, but unresolved]. To go prime-time the client, and its installation, does need to be considerably 'slicker'. Most people running distributed projects aren't savvy enough to modify files, much less files that they can't double click on and have every thing be okay. They also want "pretty colors" to tell them what is going on. Distributed.net might be the exception to this rule, as they don't have a lot of extra graphical baggage with their GUI client (though they've started to add some). I don't know how much time the people behind this project have to sink into it. It may just be a fun project for weekends or a graduate project to see if it can be done. But that there is another thread questioning whether or not the model we are operating under is suffering because we have holes where there are no islands operating is a strong indication to me that this project needs more bodies, and we need to cater to the masses more... then again, I'm a noob on this project as well.

i know the problem of the missing / wired animations to.
when i tell some of my friends: "hey, ive found a new interesting DC project"
their first question is "can i see whats going on with it???"....
many of the ppl willing to run a dc project want to have sth like a tamagotchi living and evaluating over the screen.
especially the topic of the self evaluating circuits has enormous possibilitys to create nice (3d)-animations