gnome BT Client gripe

[John Richard Moser]

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I clicked on it and it immediately. . . .

. . . .asks me to pick a torrent file.



I don't really save those things; I'm more inclined to just pass the URI
to the client.  *shrug*  wget -c torrent first and eek!

I have to download the torrent (which is found via web browser
typically, hence why I pass the URI), then browse to the torrent, then
browse again to where I want to save it.

Let's break this down, shall we?

1.  Find torrent in web browser
2.  Save torrent file to disk
3.  Browse (1) to where to save it
4.  Run Gnome BT Client
5.  Browse (2) to torrent
6.  Browse (3) starting from /home to where to save torrent

Step (1) is common, a la supernova or whatever, I'm just grabbing the
ocremix.org torrents.

Step (2) is the first problem.  The torrents are found via a Web
resource (http) and allow the retrieval of a network resource.  This
would be the equivalent of having to save a file to disk containing the
URI of a .tar.gz to be able to download the actual .tar.gz.  To review,
a .torrent file is basically a URI in itself.

Step (3) is a result of step (2) and presents the user with work:
deciding where to save something.  Either A) clutter your
desktop/home/downloads, or B) browse somewhere temporary.  Either way, bad.

Step (4) is common; you have to run some program.

Step (5) is a result of step (2), and presents the user with MORE work.
 Now he has to browse AGAIN to that torrent starting from $HOME.  If he
saved it to $HOME, his $HOME is probably cluttered.

Step (6) is common.  In and of itself, the browsing from $HOME is ok;
but here we can see some brain damage inherited from KDE.  In step (5)
we already browsed to the torrent; and now we have to browse again
starting from $HOME.  I recall in KDE doing this, having to browse down
and up passing through 4-6 directories each time I tried to import an
image into koffice, all images in the same directory.  The moral of this
story?  Never mimic KDE.

This process can be altered to give two ways.

1.  Find torrent in Web browser
2.  Open torrent with Gnome BT Client
3.  Browse to where to save torrent

This is obvious enough.  Then there's the stubborn ones of us who have
learned not to trust association from browser.  At any rate, clicking on
a .torrent in firefox displays a load of junk in the browser so this
doesn't work today.

1.  Find torrent in Web browser
2.  Copy URI
3.  Open Gnome BT Client
4.  Paste URI
5.  Browse to where to save torrent

I tried to do this of course ;)

Either of the above two processes brings only one browsing dialog and
thus a lot less work.


The problem here is that Gnome BT Client is oversimplified.  It's made
to open a torrent and download.  In essence, it's a shell command with a
GUI.

A real GUI BT client would be needed to solve these problems.  In
essence, something which opened and allowed the user to File->Open
Torrent or File->Open Torrent URI and manage multiple torrents at once.

The middle ground between this and Gnome BT client would be
self-defeating.  As GBTC is made to be a simple run-pick-go client,
complicating it with run-pick_method-pick-go would present clutter.
Nobody wants to go through a "wizard" screen to do a simple task (even
if that task is already overcomplicated now).

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