0.29c Light.7 - Downloading is going..

[2003-08-03 05:00]

Light.7 is based on Light.6.

This release is not really a good end-user release. The only thing changed in single-instance client is that progressbar has been locked to flat style. But I decided to make an intermediate release for those who're interested in how download capability removal is going.

The main points in this release are:

- File category preference items were moved to a separate class.

- Progressbar style is flat and can't be changed.

- In multiple instances version, download categories, download stats, and download triggers are gone. This pretty much means that you can't download with it even if it's still capable of downloading. I'm removing download capability feature by feature, not as a single item.

- While I haven't verified the functionality yet, a small change I made (thanks zz!) might allow the mule to download even when not connected to a server. Downloading is done only from clients that do source exchange. This is done because donkeys that don't do source exchange might not be able to find this client or download from it, so it's not fair for us to download from them either. Discussion about if this is the right thing to do, or if the limiting factor (capability of source exchange) is good is welcome.

• Full sources

And no, I haven't forgotten ZZUL. I'm just much more careful with it than with most other issues, so I do various removals still to keep things going. Of course promises subject to my whims, so if something more interesting comes my way, these might not happen next.

User documentation:

How to switch from another client to this mod?

Simple: download the executable, put that to your eMule application directory, and run it. You can rename it to emule.exe if you want to.

IMPORTANT!

As Light removes features, it also removes respective preferences options. It does not read nor write to preferences.ini the options it has removed. Therefore, if you decide to switch to official client or another mod from Light, the options that weren't used by Light will revert to default values.

Features added:

Known files list is checked for duplicate when a file is added to shared files list. Duplicated files' stats are merged, and the duplicate entries removed. Originally from eMule 0.29a[SF-VQB]-v0.33 (Tag: "SLUGFILLER: mergeKnown").

Packet refragmentation was removed, hopefully providing better upload performance. Originally from eMule 0.29a[SF-VQB]-v0.33 (Tag: "SLUGFILLER: noRefrag"). FIXED in 29c-Light.2

Multiple instances are supported. This is a dangerous feature, as no checkes are added to lock and/or synchronise eg. file access. This is useful if you want to run multiple clients from separate install dirs, with separate temp/incoming dirs. Shared files directories can be shared. If it crashes and corrupts your harddrive, it's not my problem. I do use multiple clients all the time, and needed this badly. (define: WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES)

Multiple instances client no longer registers, responds to, or sends "AreYouEmule" message. This means that it can't take ED2k links, except (for now still) via clipboard or search-screen ed2k-linkbox. Removed ED2k-links button from General Preferences and "Take links only during runtime" checkbox from Extended Preferences. Removed related preferences items and resources, too. Run single-instance client instead for download purposes - I definitely will continue removing download-related features from multiple instances version.

Multiple instances client now create mutex named by it's application directory. This means that You shouldn't be able to run multiple multiple instances clients from one directory, and that it doesn't interfere with running single-instance clients using the same GUID.

Support for mod version tag. Some mods send mod version string containing the mod's name and version. eMule Light version 0.29c-Light.5 sends "Light 0.29c.5", and the versioning will follow the same rule in the future, too. Yes, I know - I did say that the last time already, and still changed the version string format. This is because assuming the strings are listed in some client, sorting by version now groups all Light's together. The tag is stored to client info when received, but is not handled in any way yet. Perhaps I'll at some point decide where it can easily be added as shown info about client.

Features removed:

Webserver (define: WITH_WEBSERVER)

Scheduler (define: WITH_SCHEDULER)

IP Filtering (define: WITH_IPFILTER)

Webservices (links & webservices menu items) (define: WITH_WEBSERVICES)

Preview, Archive recovery and open file in shared files list (define: WITH_PREVIEW)

Splash-screen (define: WITH_SPLASH)

About-box and menuitem (define: WITH_CREDITS)

IRC client (define: WITH_IRC)

First run / Connection Wizard (define: WITH_WIZARD)

Clipboard watching (define: WITH_WATCH_CLIPBOARD). Undefined only in WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES build. It's still useful for single instance clients.

Version check (define: WITH_VERSIONCHECK). Undefined only in WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES build. It's still useful for single instance clients.

File Comments (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS). Actually consists of three separate parts: UI (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS_UI), Engine (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS_ENGINE), and Protocol (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS_PROTOCOL).

Proxy support (define: WITH_PROXY). Actually consists of three separate parts: UI (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS_UI), Engine (define: WITH_FILE_COMMENTS_ENGINE), and socket layer (define: NOLAYERS). Socket layer define is straight from existing AsyncSocketEx files, where it's used to define whether the socket layer can or can not have multiple layers.

Dynamicall loaded languages (define: WITH_LANGUAGES). Thus Light is now officially English only.

Help file (define: WITH_HELP). Light isn't exactly a beginner mod, so users aren't likely to need the internal help.

File search (define: WITH_SEARCH). Using server (or even worse, global server) search just produces unnecessary load on servers. Linksites are really a better choice for looking for files.

Secure identification is on and can't be disabled (define: WITH_DISABLE_SECIDENT). Can't see a reason to disable it anyway.

"Show overhead bandwidth" (define: WITH_SHOW_OVERHEAD). Check them in stats instead.

"Show transfer rates on title" (define: WITH_SHOW_TFRTITLE). Unnecessary eyecandy.

Rounded progressbar (define: WITH_PROGRESSBAR_STYLE). Unnecessary eyecandy.

Download categories (define: WITH_DOWNLOAD_CATEGORIES). Undefined only in WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES build. I very much like them in my download-capable client, too :)

Download statistics (define: WITH_DOWNLOAD_STATS). Undefined only in WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES build.

Download triggers (define: WITH_DOWNLOAD_TRIGGERS). Undefined only in WITH_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES build. "triggers" means anything that puts a file onto download list, eg. "direct download" on search screen, doubleclicking a file in search result list, and so on.

Developer documentation:

All defines are found in config.h. Using normal eMule Debug/Release build configurations the configuration is as per standard mule, excepting the features I borrowed from SF-VQB (which I consider highly desireable, not excludable). Additional build configurations are Debug Light, Release Light, Release Light MC and Release Light IPF. Debug Light/Release Light build configurations exclude all features. Release Light MC includes multiple instances in addition, and Release Light IPF includes IP Filtering while excluding the rest.

Such resources that were removed using compile time directives have been moved to their own resource files, included into emule.rc using normal resource include directives but wrapped within #ifdef ... #endif to only include it in build configurations where it's needed. It's important to put compile time directives not just in build configuration's compiling options, but also in resource tool options, so that correct resources are used.

Where only parts of a dialog were removed using compile time directives, those dialogs were moved to res/emule.rc2, which is not editable using APS. I regret this, but didn't see other good ways to remove just single buttons or labels from dialog using compile time directives. Respective resource identifier symbols were moved from resource.h to emule_rc2.h.

I really tried to split WITH_SEARCH into UI / Engine / Protocol components, but it was way too mixed. There was absolutely no way to do it well without rewriting it completely, so I ended up clumping the whole search into one define.

Download categories.. I've started to hate them. No, I like having them, but.. They're referred to one way or another in tens of files. Really intrusive feature.

Late feature removal by #ifdefs might not be perfect. Latest removed features have been embedded pretty much all around the codebase, so I might have missed some places where I should've marked them.

Also, I can't really be sure if all possible feature combinations even compile. There just are so many of them that I can't test it. Mainly I think enabling webserver and/or irc while removing many other features might cause trouble. One of the reasons is that I do not use webserver myself, not even to test if it works. I really don't care about webserver any more than that I got it removed..

Rest of the documentation you can find from cleanup-tree. It's not much, but the changes aren't really that big.