WebTorrent 1.0 checklist

[dcposch]

@feross from our conversation yesterday:

• Growth tracking: # of active users, month over month growth
• UI polish. Improve the CSS (Preferences page rehaul: use React components, UI improvements [WORK IN PROGRESS] #802, Add 'Segoe UI' #813, ...)
  • Clarify download status (see pause a torrent #715)
  • Clarify that torrents can be expanded / collapsed
• Cast menu
  • Cast menu should be modal instead of being a toggle menu
• Technical debt cleanup
  • Split up renderer/main.js
  • Eliminate uncaught exceptions as best we can (Bugfixes #804, ...)
  • State object refactor. The state object is not as simple and clean as it could be. We should think carefully and only change it once, since keeping backward compatibility with multiple config.json formats would be ugly.
• Telemetry
  • Report uncaught exceptions
  • Maybe report % of times the play button Just Works, % times out, % shows unsupported codec error
• Performance
  • Profile and see what's making WebTorrent sluggish
  • Reduce CPU use
• Better codec support
  • "Play in VLC" should allow casting instead; the cast devices have AC3 support
  • Ideally, we should just support AC3. On Windows and Mac, we could use the system codec support

[feross]

👍

[dcposch]

Also:

• Bounds refactor. Save the latest non-player window bounds, and restore to those whenever existing the player. This should fix Window doesn't auto-resize after opening torrent in maximized mode #648 as well as a bug I just discovered: play video > start casting > stop casting > hit ESC returns to the torrent list as expected, but the window doesn't resize.
• Show seeded torrents immediately. Currently, newly created torrents don't show up in the list at all until they have an infohash, which can take an unacceptable 30+ seconds for a large torrent, since it requires reading and hashing all the files.

[dcposch]

• Autoplay files within a torrent. Until we can do this we don't really support audiobooks.

[dcposch]

• Cast refactor. Simplify state (state.playing / state.devices etc)
  • When casting to a device fails, the corresponding cast menu item shouldn't be checked
  • New cast devices should show up without rebooting the app. Same for removing cast devices. Currently this doesn't work reliably for DLNA.
  • When you're eg. streaming to Chromecast from WTD, then you unplug the Chromecast, it should kick you back to the regular player and remove the corresponding cast menu item

[feross]

Just shipped WebTorrent v0.11. https://github.com/feross/webtorrent-desktop/releases/tag/v0.11.0

Hoping we can do one more release (v0.12) in the next few days, and then hopefully we're ready for v1.0!

[bortexz]

Hi guys,

Regarding:

• Clarify download status (see pause a torrent #715), we could use a 'pause' or 'stop' button. I read over the issue and saw @dcposch comment about the pause button being confusing next to a Play button, but wanted to try it anyway. For me is more clarifying than the current status. Also, it helps the fact that the red play button never becomes a pause button (as it only opens the player). I leave some screenshots:

When torrent is already paused, it will show the current download/upload icons.

For

• Clarify that torrents can be expanded / collapsed, I am trying with some arrows before the current buttons, I leave some screenshots:

What do you think? kind to open PR on this

[iovis]

I still think it's confusing having a big play button with the pause/stop one. Maybe a solution would be having them in different places instead of next to each other?

[bortexz]

@iovis9 Agree, maybe having the torrenting button more aligned with the torrent metadata and leave the 'play' button alone would be more clarifying. This would need a bit more of design, though.

As for now, I have tried with the pause/reload button just on hover, so the torrenting status is still visible at first sight. You can have a look here https://github.com/bertofer/webtorrent-desktop

[dcposch]

@iovis9 We don't support the use of WebTorrent for copyright infringement, and cannot help you.

[dcposch]

@bertofer Thanks for the ideas. Let's move the torrent list designs to their own issue.

[feross]

I think we're really close to 1.0. I just updated the checkboxes. Better codec support is the most important remaining issue, IMO.

[iShift]

and heavy CPU usage too, when i lunch webtorrent on MBP i start hearing fans inside (qbittorrent work quiet)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.