New Client Weekly Update

[silicon_toad2000]

and my other concern is that even when you do happen to release a working beta and/or a stable final version afterwards, what's to make people come back? you've been out of the running for far too long and tons of people have moved on, since it IS the internet and too many people have the attention span of a goldfish.

they try it once, it's not working, search results filled with foreign character crap. they try a month later, the same. they give it a couple months, come back and still same crap. 6 months later, same deal and they finally give up, intending never to try again. so how are you gonna bring them back?

are you gonna post notices on youtube or other video sharing sites, ask forumers from here to spread the word......how?

There's a bit of 'you' and 'them' going on here. You need to realise we're all a part of the community. No one person or group is responsible for bringing people back to the community, we all are.
If the community wants the network to grow, 'we' (as in the community) will all have to do what we can.

[GhostShip]

A simpler implementation would be to have the primary store an optional ID field for those who want to be found and have a blank field space for those who dont and when folks want to find someone specific they query the network akin to roomlist and search and the primary holding the specific ID number will reply, obviously this would mean actively switching on a setting in your client to allow this privacy degrading action but thats my idea of how it can be done trivially, obviously if your a primary you can query the network yourself before anyone asks 

[Bluey_412]

and you would be surprised at how many winmx users continue to lurk, patiently waiting for what they know is coming

[Joanne]

and my other concern is that even when you do happen to release a working beta and/or a stable final version afterwards, what's to make people come back? you've been out of the running for far too long and tons of people have moved on, since it IS the internet and too many people have the attention span of a goldfish.

they try it once, it's not working, search results filled with foreign character crap. they try a month later, the same. they give it a couple months, come back and still same crap. 6 months later, same deal and they finally give up, intending never to try again. so how are you gonna bring them back?

are you gonna post notices on youtube or other video sharing sites, ask forumers from here to spread the word......how?

There's a bit of 'you' and 'them' going on here. You need to realise we're all a part of the community. No one person or group is responsible for bringing people back to the community, we all are.
If the community wants the network to grow, 'we' (as in the community) will all have to do what we can.

I have to agree with LiveForeverNow, it has been far too long to wait and many users have given up.
The so called winmx community is a bit out of touch and the new client has taken too long.

I understand that Rome wasnt built in a day but the effort although appreciated just isnt enough.

[silicon_toad2000]

well the winmx community is all of the users, I wouldn't think everyone is out of touch, every just has different expectations, wants, needs and levels of patience and understanding.
I understand you frustration and if you really feel that a few people putting in night after night of work for no return at all just isn't enough for you then it isn't enough.
Many users have left the network and are waiting for the new client, many have left and will never come back and I'd like to think that there are many non users who have never heard of winmx that will become part of the community down the track. Some users have stayed despite the troubles because they have friends here and have forged some great relationships.

At the end of the day, winmx and the replacement client is the only network of its kind. A great community to chat with and help, decentralised security, no trackers, no central authority, no logs.

[Einsteinus]

Even though it has taken a while a dedicated core has kept the flames burning with their chat rooms..proof that community survives.  And lest one forget as I have harped on in the past, the open/slava part of winmx has never been better...yes things have changed ..more people are connected with fiber now...and even though we all have found other ways to download stuff (I am sure Netflix has taken a bite as well) there are collectors like myself not just lurking but available if you know where to look.  Also what has changed is the price of storage. Many of my friends like myself have in the range of a few terabytes to share and since we have survived over 10 years as a community much of the stuff we are up to speed sharing is in the public domain.  You cannot compare winmx multi-point downloads with any other thing on earth. Its kind of like Netflix and Match. com all in one!

[Bluey_412]

Theres lots of users (?) who dont come near the chat rooms.

Do we really know, Hooked?

[Trestor]

Off topic and I'm not taking sides but I can say that I, for one, don't go to any chat rooms because I seldom speak or have anything of interest to say. As far as winmx is concerned I rely on these threads to know what is going on.

[Joanne]

Apart from the die hards waiting for the new client, winmx is all but dead.

Sad but true 

[silicon_toad2000]

You're far from alone Joanne. For those who feel winmx is dead to them, it is.
For others it is not and nor are they alone.

From what I see there are still people sharing files, still people chatting and still a lot of 'die hards' on the network.

[GhostShip]

Most avid p2p watchers already know that a p2p network can collapse or grow in a very short space of time, I have seen many small ones come and go and the one factor that affects the speed of any growth or decline is the quantity of userbase support,.

We have all been lucky with the general response of the winmx userbase being a lack of any willingness to give up on an old friend especially when they have been patient before and received the goods before (the winmx 2005 crash, the KM related 2007 crash and the community patch arrival later that year) , sure its been a long haul but for sure it will arrive as tbh theres no will or reason to give up, its natural for thousands of core winmxers to fight adversity when it rears its ugly head and that's what has taken place, if the developers are happy to continue and the users are happy to wait whats the issue ?

I know many will be happily surprised when the betas start to be issued and will forget the delays and the missed deadlines,  the cost of being patient is little and the gain for being supportive is to boost the developers with helpful comments and feedback when necessary to achieve a fully functioning application that will belong to the community and lift the burden of being unable to update a client when some rogue attacker smokes too many rastafarian cigarettes and goes on the rampage, those days will be long gone with all and any of the users being delivered the tools to fix such attacks and behold to no one, the price of this freedom is exactly nothing to the end user, it seems a win win situation to me and I know deep down many are frustrated with the time its taken but few believe we wont deliver, we always have done.

[White Stripes]

Theres lots of users (?) who dont come near the chat rooms.

between the odd rules (some rooms going as far as to disable the '/me' command), the overuse of game bots, and the unreadable usernames ... yep... i stay away from all but the wmw help room in case i need to test something or need help... ...there are 'hangers-on' who just want the files.... how many we dont know, but the naps are pretty populated if that says anything...

[wonderer]

Even if, which is not very likely, there will never be a new client
Just let this sink a bit
We still have a very strong community where the competition to deliver fastest and best subtitles is great
Sure there are more and more easy ways but nowhere on the entire internet we will find an application offering the same WinMx offers.
Its not a question of diehards, its a strong believe of what can be achieved that makes us patient.

[GhostShip]

Currently the developers are working on the chat server command logic and the file queing system logic obviously essential but tedious work so hopefully we will be in a pretty good position soon as regards capabilities, we still have an annoying bug that appears when closing the client and this will be tracked down when time is available,, things are pretty slow atm but we are more than 3/4 + in the bag now and many of the features work well albeit in a rudimentary fashion, I have taken the decision to slice a few corners in some areas where it will not affect the user experience as we can polish the client any time in the future but we must get it to a release stage, as many of you have stated it need not be perfect but it must work and this has been taken on board to speed things up.

I hope this is all acceptable and my thanks to some of you for unwittingly helping in many of the live tests that have been going on in the transfers dept, if all of the userbase was using mxmoni we would be unable to do all of the testing we need 

I will return to bring you an update on the progress of these items soon I hope and look forward to a few more tests before looking at a first public beta, we are pretty near but we must ensure as much of the client is clean and functional before we throw it out into the wild where its sure to be tested for exploits etc by the unscrupulous.

[Joanne]

Has any progress been made since the last "weekly update" ? 

[silicon_toad2000]

why do you want to know jo?
i thought winmx was dead for you?

[GhostShip]

There are always updates but they are hardly earth shattering and worthy of a long post.

Impatience is I hope a mask for your building excitement Joanne.

[Joanne]

There are always updates but they are hardly earth shattering and worthy of a long post.

Impatience is I hope a mask for your building excitement Joanne.

At this rate most of the winmx community will have expired. 

[GhostShip]

Make no mistake Joanne I too want the new client to be ready yesterday but when I asked for MFC programmers none arrived except those we already had so like yourself I am anxious as to when we will be ready with it but always be assured we are working hard to deliver to the testers and the folks in that order, a decent product that you will enjoy as much as the original client.

I have released a new test version to the testers (3D ver8), we are hoping to have another ready soon in the next fortnight.

[Einsteinus]

Make no mistake Joanne I too want the new client to be ready yesterday but when I asked for MFC programmers none arrived except those we already had so like yourself I am anxious as to when we will be ready with it but always be assured we are working hard to deliver to the testers and the folks in that order, a decent product that you will enjoy as much as the original client.

I have released a new test version to the testers (3D ver8), we are hoping to have another ready soon in the next fortnight.

  Do the beta's come with glasses or do we need to buy our own?