Ability to set priority from DLs-in-progress window

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 05:23

I thought someone would've suggested this at some point or other, but if it's out there I haven't found it yet. Personally, I think it'd be very useful to have the ability to adjust download priority for a given file from the right-click-menu in the downloads-currently-in-progress window.

Post by **GargoyleMT** » 2003-04-23 07:51

Well, priorities are only used currently to determine the order in which queued downloads are picked for download (versus affecting transfer speed in some other P2P applications). What benefit would changing an already downloading file's priority be?

[KUN.NL]mepmuff · Post by **[KUN.NL]mepmuff** » 2003-04-23 07:51

Could you elaborate as to the point of this feature? The progress window shows files which are already being downloaded, so changing the priority at that time doesn't change a thing. Or perhaps you want to change the priority of downloads that get interrupted, but than i feel a give high priority to interrupted downloads feature would be a better sollution.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 13:48

Yes, here is my reasoning on the matter: changing priority for currently downloading files doesn't change a thing at the time, but it would give priority to those DLs that are interrupted. Among other things, this could be useful for those files that you realize are almost finished and just want them to be completed soon whether they get interrupted or not.
Perhaps having a 'give high priority to interrupted DLs' feature would be useful as well, but I don't know if I would want to give a high priority to every single one of my interrupted DLs.

[KUN.NL]mepmuff · Post by **[KUN.NL]mepmuff** » 2003-04-23 14:04

Well, the way i would see that interupted priority is that dc++ sets it to high, after which you can set it back if you want to or set it to highest if you really want it asap. Another option would be a setting where you can tell dc++ which priority to give to interupted downloads.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 14:08

Yes, but I am not sure a universal automated option is useful/necessary here. If I am only going to want to change the priority of certain currently downloading files that are close to being finished, then it is not helpful for me to have an option changing all interrupted downloads to a specific priority. In this case, the automated system would create more work for me than if it was turned off!

[KUN.NL]mepmuff · Post by **[KUN.NL]mepmuff** » 2003-04-23 14:19

I don't think it would be a very usable feature, as you have to be witnessing the interruption to use it. I think setting high(est) priority when you want a file bad and bumping up priorities when files are interupted would do the trick just as well.

I'm getting the feeling you're having a scenario in mind which i don't see myself, so can you give an example where an automated feature wouldn't work for you?

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 14:49

You don't have to witness anything to use it. All you would have to do is right click and set the priority to whatever you want depending on what you want to occur in the event of being disconnected. If the DL is at 90% and you want it to finish soon regardless of whether it is interrupted, then just set the priority to highest and in the event of an interrupt it will still most likely finish off the DL relatively soon. I know this feature would be useful for me, because I constantly find myself absent-mindedly right-clicking on the DLs I have in progress wanting to change the priority.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 15:02

Scenario: I have the option set to automatically bump up priorities for interrupted DLs. There are ten items currently being DLed. Five files get interrupted, and four of these files were new DLs only at 1-10% complete. One of the items was 93% complete. I want the item that is 93% complete to be set at highest priority, but I don't want to change the priority of the other four DLs. Unfortunately, because the DL-interrupt-priority system is automated it means that all five files are currently the same priority. This means I have to go through and manually change back the four files whose priority I don't want changed. Also, it is relatively easy to imagine that if I leave my computer on overnight or for several days with downloads in progress and I have an automated priority-upping system in place then things could get ugly. Say I cycle through 300 DLs during that time period, 210 of which are interrupted. I now have 210 files set at high priority!
In both of these scenarios it is better to have a manual system in place for changing DL priority from the DLs-in-progress window.

Post by **GargoyleMT** » 2003-04-23 15:15

But if downloads that are incomplete are picked in the order of completeness (the way I imagined it'd be implemented), then that scenario would play out just as you intended it to... right?

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 15:29

Yes, for the most part it could be that an automated system which takes into account completeness in its order rankings would be effective in doing what I described. There is only one potential problem I see here: if I want to decide priority on a file by file basis and for varying reasons then a manual system is still best. There are number of factors that could go into deciding to change the priority of a download and it is difficult to provide for all of these eventualities in an automated system.
Be that as it may, if someone is willing to implement an automated priority system based on order of completeness in DL-interrupts then I'm all for it! I just saw the right-click menu addition as an option that would potentially be easier to implement and solve the issue well enough.

Post by **GargoyleMT** » 2003-04-23 15:38

From reading the forum, people are all pretty particular about the order in which their downloads complete... I'm not sure a single system will ever solve it all, but if there is one that will solve it, its design doesn't jump out at me.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 15:54

Well, I could see an option, "Change all files at [n]% complete to [p] priority," might be used by a fair number of people so long as they had control over the values of [n] and [p].
In any case, I still see the right-click menu addition to manually adjust DL priority in the current DLs window as a good solution.

[KUN.NL]mepmuff · Post by **[KUN.NL]mepmuff** » 2003-04-23 16:02

How about:

1) mapping the current presets to numbers, let's say:
Lowest: 0
Low: 10
Normal: 25
High: 50
Highest: 100

2) When a download gets interupted, calculate new priority as follows:

Code: Select all

new_priority := old_priority + (progress/100 * (100 - old_priority))

This would bump up the items relative to the progress. As an alternative option you could set all started downloads at at least 50, so interrupted low priority downloads get downloaded before fresh normal priority ones.

This would be also make it possible (for those who want to) to finetune their downloadpriorities to the extreme

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 16:14

It would be interesting to see how this works. I think the only way to really see is to test it out. I'm not sure I would want to start out all my downloads at lowest priority, but maybe this would work well in the system you describe.

[KUN.NL]mepmuff · Post by **[KUN.NL]mepmuff** » 2003-04-23 16:25

You don't have to start all downloads at lowest priority. The new priority would depend on the old priority and the progress made. The idea is that the standard priority would remain normal(50). After that you can change priorities manually.

The point i tried to make about low priorities is whether or not not they need to get a higher than normal priority once interrupted.

The only downside (if it really is one) is that downloads that get interrupted more often gain priority faster (a normal download interrupted twice at 75% would get priority 88 ((50 + 25) + 13)). Of course this can be avoided by remembering the previous progress made, but i'm not sure if that's something you want to do.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 16:40

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. I have a feeling it would be best to keep the process as straightforward as possible and let users decide whether they would want to turn it on or not. 0-100 priority levels is a good idea to implement into the system certainly, and 50 as the standard starting-point follows as a matter of course. 0 could potentially leave a DL in stasis mode so it could be reactivated at a future time. This feature alone would be extremely useful. In any case, there is certainly a lot here to look at and potential for quite a few different directions. Yes, I think your idea might work well.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 16:43

To clarify, I think it would be best if the process is as formulaic as possible without having to remember too many previous values.

Wjierd · Post by **Wjierd** » 2003-04-23 16:51

In fact, I see no reason why the number of interrupts should be taken into account at all. If anything, that could be left for another option. Just bumping up the priorities of files as they reach certain points in the DL would work very well in my opinion.

DC++

Ability to set priority from DLs-in-progress window

Ability to set priority from DLs-in-progress window

Re: Ability to set priority from DLs-in-progress window