Bitcoin Forum

I installed the 0.5.0 version and the user interface is total crap!

The startup splash screen is lame. The wallet in the picture is very similar to my old wallet I was using for 8 years. It was sticky, and the coins was falling out from it so I got a new one. The Splash screen for Bitcoin must be like in DC++.

The overview window does not allow me quickly view and sort the transactions, I need to click the transactions, but then the balance is not shown.

Transactions window does not show number of confirmations, I need to hang cursor over to see confirmations. The recieved payments who have no label attached to recieving adress is greyed out just like unconfirmed transactions in previous version, even if they are confirmed. The spacing is too large between transactions, the view can't show as much transactions as the 0.4.0 version could.

The connection status looks like signal indicator from old cellphone. I need to hang cursor over it and wait until I can see how much connections I got. In previous versions the number of connections was shown right away in statusbar. The same is for number of blocks.

The Address Book is unnecessary split in page Recieve coins (some stupid user might think that the Recieve Coins button is used for getting the coins) and Address book. The Adress book also have the same problem as transactions window - too much wasted space.

The intruduction of mBTC and uBTC is unnecesiary right now.

Overall the Bitcoin has taken the step that Skype made years earlier - soiling the interface to appeal to novice users also known as lamers. You make a software that even idiot can use, and idiot will be the only one who will use it.

Looking for way to downgrade and continiue using 0.4.0 on my main rig. And even the minimize to tray only works if I click Close button. The setting "Minimize to tray instead of taskbar" does not have any effect.

It has been completely revamped using a modern toolkit.  Give it a few releases and I'm sure most of your concerns will be addressed.  This was a necessary pain that will allow the developers to change the UI code more easily.

LOL OP what the hell are you talking about?

This is a vast improvement, both aesthetically (although I guess that's always subjective) and functionally (not subjective).

I heart it very much.

The key word for the problem is "modern". I prefer the native Windows API.

And I even don'y have the current recieving address displayed in main window with two buttons right to it - New Adress and Copy to clipboard.

This is a lesson for me to test all software prior deploying on my computer. I only checked the setup files signatures to be sure they are released by Bitcoin developers, and did not tested it on my virtual enviroment.

The Satoshi made the original client almost perfect from visual and usability standpoints. Just like he did the Bitcoin Whitepaper. Now Bitcoin is screwed for sure and I'm waiting for forks that uses the old toolkit or even better the native Windows API. I will run the new 0.5.0 as less as possible.

Aesthetically it's look like malware written for kids. You are probably new to computers, and you probably never used Win95 that set standart for computer interface for more than next decade. All you need is eye candy that detaches You from the program workings, such as hiding number of connections, hiding number of blocks and so on.

The Functionality is more broken than ever. Using 0.4.0 generate new address and then copy to clipboard it to paste it somewhere. Now do it again using 0.5.0 when the client is in Overview mode. How much clicks You need to done, how much eye and cursor movements?

I guess if you're going for a Windows95 motif then this latest version is a regression. Personally, I think Win95 had much too much eye candy... all those corners and colors and buttons and crap. DOS was far superior, for it let you really connect with the "program workings." I'm hoping Gavin and Co. will just scrap the GUI entirely. THEN Bitcoin will really catch on.

Then fork the client... it's opensource.  In the mean time, the other developers will focus their efforts on one toolkit that supports all platforms.  AFAIK QT can be made to look like Windows, but I've never tried.  To ask them to support 3 different toolkits for Windows, Mac, and Linux is insanity.  You probably don't care about the non-windows platforms, but many do, including the developers.  There are several other clients as well, and if you look around a little you might find one that suits your needs.

LOL.... seriously dude, screw the gui, run bitcoind.  It's really not that hard.

Good work, I really like the new client but I must agree in part with OP

To me it's like if the software contain dozen of section to be filled in the future.

From my previous post, :
It is not clear to me what is "reveice coin Vs. addresse book"
What I suggest in help tab is "Enable ballon help when mousing over items"


I have 77 connection and the icon is one small red bar with tree yellow. That does not look positive to me.

I don't need particular motif, I can use almost any software. But the original Bitcoin client was so lightweight, minimalistic yet it contained all that was needed for operation. Original Bitcoin was few of the recent software that sticked to oldschool UI principles. Other examples I can give are TrueCrypt, Exact Audio Copy and WinRAR.The Bitcoin will really catch on if they rewrite it in Java and add Facebook support just like Skype did, so lamers can see each others bitcoin adresses and update they statuses when they send bitcoins. This really will get Bitcoin wide userbase.Yes, it's opensource that means I can get the source code. But this does not mean that I can get the developmenet team or spare time to develop the code further.I don't hate Qt, I know software that uses Qt un Windows and it have good UI. The Vidalia is excellent example. The only thing that is native to Windows is native Windows API.I personally will dump support for any other OS than Windows, but Bitcoin is not that case. Bitcoin have more users who are using *nix platforms than average population, partly because they are overparanoid, partly because there is challenging mining rigs setups.My perfect client looks just like original Satoshi client, are written in C++ and ASM, have native 64-bit support.For some special purposes I already do that. For my own desktop computer I prefer the GUI version.This is not so big problem, the icon might be fixed. The problem is that there is no numerical values written in the statusbar at all, I need to aim my cursor and wait for a second to know how much connections I have, instead of just taking a quick look on Bitcoin client to see if the router is working properly and I'm contributing to network.

That's all I've ever done.  I've never seen the old or the new GUI and don't give two shits about it personally.  My main bitcoind runs on a headless machine which is currently a few feet away from me (I will admit) but could easily be on any VPS anywhere in the world so the last thing I want is a lot of graphics shit getting in my way.

I also only run someone else's binary only in very rare circumstances.  As it happens, I need to tweak the code a bit at the moment to get bitcoind to compile.  Even if I was interested in the GUI, it would be extra grief to get it to work.

@MysteryMiner:  I must say that whining about the GUI is not exactly good for your resume to my way of thinking.  Just FYI.

I posted a list of what I disliked about 0.5 in the development thread a while back. That was in Technical Discussion though, which is generally used more for discussing the tech aspects than subjective opinions of the GUI.
Since I'm posting here to agree with some of the OPs points, I'll add a copy of my previous post:

Good:
1. Hate modal windows. Send/receive on tabs (or anywhere that's not a freaking modal window) is an improvement.
2. Every other change I noticed but did not complain about.

Good-impaired:
1. The old icon/logo looked better.
2. Don't see the point of the "overview" tab. Everything presented there could (and should) be available in the transactions tab instead.
3. Your total balance should be available on every tab and in the same location (top left IMO).
4. Not a fan of tooltip-heavy software.
5. Should be able to see the number of confirmations without hovering.
6. Should be able to see connections and block total without hovering.
7. Any way to disable the -Transaction Received- tray message?
8. "Minimize to tray instead of taskbar" doesn't seem to do anything. When it's on, the program (when minimized) "disappears" from the taskbar and then instantly reappears there again.
9. I think it would be more convenient if all the buttons were in the same general area. Right now three of the tabs have buttons at the bottom of the window. Seems like a minor issue, but things like that can get annoying pretty quickly (especially if you run the GUI client maximized).
10. Splash image looks a bit cheesy.

I personally have used only Linux for about ten years now, and it has nothing to do with paranoia or bitcoin mining.  I am a programmer by trade and working on windows is painful for me.  It's the simple things like middle-click to paste the most recently highlighted text that really make the system nice.  Windows terminal can't even handle tab completion properly.

Nice list, constructive presentation.

Installing v0.5 only add bitcoin-qt.exe, the original bitcoin.exe is still here.

I really like the direction that we are going on this new wallet release. Does it need a bit of work?

Sure, but still looking a hell of alot better than before. Great job guys!

The other things are working good for me, except GUI. As I said, I can use almost any software, except software that requires command line in chinese language. If the Bitcoin will look like that from begining, I will be silent. Not the good interface is replaced with a bad one, it's like something is stolen from me for sake of eye candy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmXL6-F3vZQ True also. But it's not so important, thay are similar enough.Yes, like it already was in 0.4.0Yes, that was in 0.4.0. In new version it might be the status bar with balance, but it will not be good visibility.I'm not also, the basic operation of Bitcoin does not require tooltips on basic functions. Maybe configurable on/off tooltips will do the job.I also said about that and it was available in 0.4.0This might be easily configurable in options when implemented. But I recieved transactions and did not seen the baloon message. Something wrong?Cheesy was my old wallet who looked almost exactly like one in splashscreen. It smelled also like swiss cheese. The splash screen reminds me about that every time!

I can make two images that contains my vision about how things should look in 0.4.0 and 0.5.0 versions. You will see that some improvements that are hyped in 0.5.0 can easily be implemented in wxwidgets based 0.4.0, and how Qt based 0.5.0 can be improved by rearranging the layout. Anyone interested?

That's actually a good idea.

Sure, show us your mockups.  Just remember, talk is cheap and code is not.  Maybe you'll get lucky and someone will do the hard work for you and you can sit back and learn how to get what you want by whining.  I agree there are some regressions, but you are bringing a lot more emotion to the situation then is necessary.  Simply pointing out your preferred improvements is helpful, but hyperbolic language like saying a theft has occurred is not constructive.  Plus, as had been pointed out, the old GUI is still available.

  You know, as much as the thought of anything relating to social media makes me want to gag on a spoon, this is actually an excellent idea...

Yes, really good for getting quantity of users to skyrocket, but quality of users will suffer. And software will be bloated. I will use alternative Bitcoin client by that time.

Reminds me funny times when unparsed php files was accidentally served by facebook and facebook lawyears treatened me despite me living in another part of the globe. Finally I did not give up and all the files are still circulating internet.Yes, I know how time consuming it is to write code compared to writing angry posts or drawing with photoshop. I only hope that my ideas will give some inspiration and as a result the client will be better for everyone of us.I know that old exe file is still there, I will even reinstall if I need to, but I prefer to run latest and greatest.

It's the type of shit people like me have been talking about for months...

Just no easy way to implement any of it...

Social Media shouldn't make you gag by the way...

Bitcoin can be seen as a more streamlined approach to monetizing "social media".

Hmm... Sounds like bad news. I've seen Qt programs that integrated perfectly with Windows, so I was hoping that this UI would be OK, but I guess not.

It seems that everyone loves to mess up UIs nowadays. Firefox, Vuze, Windows Media Player, Windows itself, etc. I had to install 5 extensions and a theme just to get Firefox to look somewhat decent.

Looks like I'll be using 0.3.x for another year. :)

So, I don't have the new client, but...

I read what you said.  And I agree those sound like lame changes.

Then I read your last part about idiot usage.  If we assume that's true, then it's probably the best change to happen to Bitcoin in a while.

You are more worried about the quality of the users than the bitcoin adoption rate? For serious?
Unfortunately, idiots are the primary drivers of all economies as they account for the great majority of the population.
Would you suggest we prevent people from using the USD because their IQ is too low? Talk some sense please.

I am actually quite concerned about the 'quality of users'.  Not for Bitcoin's sake, but fore the user's sake.  There are way to many sharks still, IMHO, and not enough time for the 'good' people to have proven themselves.  People getting ripped off immediately after taking an interest in Bitcoin is hardly a great way to grow the system.

I also have some concerns about certain aspects of Bitcoin.  Chiefly it's scalability under a giant waterfall of load.  I would want to see some well working implementations of some of the scaling theories before they are needed for real life.  (Though it is entirely possible that these are being worked on as I don't keep up with this stuff as much as I should.)

I think that the best trajectory is for people who have lost faith in fiat currencies drift in over a period of time.  These people will be generally better prepared to look out for themselves since it does not seem to be a high priority in the existing community.  I see no reason to get into a giant hurry about growing the system and increasing the adoption rate.  It'll happen as the actual need for the solution dictates.

When i opened the new client for the first time I made this mistake, I'm sure other people will as well. "Address book" in the 0.40 client clearly separates sending and receiving address.

The Dev team MUST do beta testing with us b4 releasing the next client!

i will contact Gavin shortly, i suggest you do the same, don't tell him what they did wrong... tell him why its important to do beta testing outside his the dev team b4 releasing new versions... in all honesty i don't give a fuck how long it take for the client to evolve i just NEED it to be perfect ever time

Many people have missed their possibilities to beta test the client, but now they aren't missing any to complain ;D
There are many discussions with 7 RC builds ( and one completely dedicated to the GUI ), if you missed them ... it's your fault.

I like the new GUI although i partially agree on some points OP makes.
However, it is extremely important to make bitcoin newbie-friendly so that my grandma isn't scared away by the initial look of the interface with tons of technical information.
Some check-boxes in the settings panel should be able to fix this issue, adapt the interface to your likings.

Oh, I can't believe it, someone else thinks that Win32 native GUI is the best, just like I do :)
(but I know that it's not suitable for most typical plain users)

Mmm... perfect software...

You notice how we aren't at Bitcoin version 1.0 yet?  That the version is "0.5 BETA" ?

If you NEED it to be perfect then you're going to be waiting forever, because no software is ever perfect.

The criteria for a new 0.something release is "Is there general agreement that it is better than the last release."

There is general agreement that the new GUI is better; the huge problem with the old GUI is we have no wxWidgets GUI programmers willing to support the old GUI. There are several people contributing patches to the new Qt GUI.

I've said it before but I'll say it again:  Bitcoin is still a high-risk, high-potential-reward experiment, and you shouldn't invest time or money that you can't afford to lose. We're working hard to make it better, but we're not perfect.

OP, what is wrong with you?  The new bitcoin-qt gui is freakin' amazing.  Stop nitpicking the shit out of it.  I even helped develop a tiny part of it  :)

Instead of whining about it on the forum, what you should do is open a github account, fork it, develop, and then send pull requests.  Much more productive doing that.

lol +1

Good points Gavin.

Bitcoin QT 0.5.0 is just AWESOME.

I applaud the move to Qt and wish to express my appreciation to the people who did the coding.  Let's not bash the efforts of volunteers.  Having said that, I agree that some aspects of the new GUI need a bit of work.  I think I would get rid of the "Receive coins" section and instead have sending and receiving sections in the address book.  I would also like to see a private key import feature at some point.  I agree that it would be nice to see the block count and number of connections without having to hover the mouse pointer.   Why not have a status bar that's visible from every section which has the balance, number of connections and block count?  

I'm not sure how useful the Overview section is.  What else could we put there?

understood

sry of the mean like comment.

but i do have a point, you should pass on the new client to the people on this forum b4 sending it out to the public.

we might have SOME valid feedback.... the above comments are mostly not valid, but some have good points that should be considered.


Edit:


ok so you do do beta testing.... we just all missed the beta testing :P

well keep up the good work.

I minimize my risk by never dwling the newest client every time is come out. i wait a few weeks.

OP is being just a little too nostalgic and afraid of change here. The leap to the qt-gui is great. All of the minor details that OP lists should not be taken too seriously.

+1 definitely

As a general rule, accusing people of being "afraid of change" is an incredibly annoying and condescending way to dismiss their (potentially) valid concerns.

As defined by Thempsleighs Codified Rules of Applied Seriousness (Vol. 2).

I think the new UI is great!

I do think that it would be nice with more numbers and text directly, rather than having to hover to get information.

Bitcoin 0.5.0 is very good and what's more important for Bitcoin's growth, it has user friendly interface!

The switch to QT is the right decision. Does the UI need some (minor) improvements?  Yes.  Will we be seeing improvements?  I'm confident we will.

I like the new Qt client, but I have to agree that the splash screen is corny. In my opinion it would be a lot more elegant to integrate the "Loading..."-phase into the GUI of the client, so the actual GUI can be shown immediately.

Simply save the balances and recent transactions to a file on exit. When the program starts up, show the GUI immediately with the old balances/transactions in a "disabled" window (everything greyed out) with a big "Loading wallet information..." and an animated icon on top of this to show that the application is still running. Then when the block chain etc. is loaded, replace the old cached balance/transactions with the newly parsed stuff and remove the "Loading"-text/icon.

I agree with some points in first post.
1) There is huge space waste in list of transactions and addresses. 2/3 of the line height would be fine.
2) I don't know about windows client, but on Ubuntu the sharp-edge boxes on overview page seems almost like a UI bug. (most visible using elementary gtk theme)
3) And I also don't like the splash screen.

Unfortunately I am not able to do anything about 1st and 2nd point, but here are some mockups of splash screen:
http://deafboy.cicolina.org/igelitka/btc-logo/ (http://deafboy.cicolina.org/igelitka/btc-logo/)

I was trying to find this topic yesterday without luck so I have posted it in older thread related to splash screen.

Did You notice that DC++ is still 0.782 version? If it was made by Google or Symantec, the same DC++ will be version 10 or 12 major version. Numbering in general does not represent usability or buginness of software. You will not get cake when releasing 1.0 version, Mozilla did not get one for Firefox 8.0 :D Better to find new developer than use another GUI and screw the whole software up.Imagine, if You are a straight man and I will offer to sodomize You with big rubber dildo, I will tell that You are too nostalgic and afraid of change. This is not a valid argument at all. The software must be clean, fast, technical, easy to understand just by looking at it. It's like the MS Office 2000 compared to Office 2007 and Ribbon. Sure, both of them works, but my mother needed to completely relearn how to use office suite. I also had a trouble to find menu items for a first few days.The 0.40 did not have? Can You tell why it did not have?

I was away and busy for few days so no mockups of improvements on 0.4.0 exist for now. And thank's to all who donated to both my public and private adresses, so I thin'k I'm not alone with such concerns about Bitcoin future. There is a few nostalgic, afraid of change people, who don't like childish interfaces.

i am agree with the topic

the gui of new version 0.5 is suck.

address book + receive coins are useless. after received some coins, the address wont even be changed automatic.

user need to click on "receive coins", new,and copy. and there is no order in  "receive coins". it makes many address mix up,thats sucks.

overview is weak too, 0.4 is much better than this one.

Something I learned from GA at local occupy movement.

Unless you have a clear proposal that includes how you will make improvements on your complaints, your complaint will be ignored and not be presented to everyone for discussion.

So this thread is completely useless in that regard. Just complaining to complain hoping someone will care about your crying. Moving on.

Wouldn't mentally changing the thread title from
"The new interface in Bitcoin 0.5.0 is BAD!"
to
"The new interface in Bitcoin 0.5.0 is BAD when compared to the 0.4.0 interface"
(which is pretty much implied already)
completely invalidate your criticism of their criticism?

Ok, changed the topic title.Yes, I also seen that, but it's more to do with functionality than GUI. The Bitcoin is intended to use new adress for every recieved payment, so changing adress automatically is what Satoshi intended and implemented.My sugesstion is abandon Qt version completely and stick to 0.4.0 and add interface elements to that, not rework it from scratch. Sorry, I still have not made the mockups of my vision on wxwidgets version, I'm busy right now and Bitcoin is no more on my priority list. The Gavin will not change his mind, and will continiue on what he intended.

Besides that, my bitcoin 0.5.0 crashed twice in last days when computer was idling. This never happened even once with previous versions in last 9 months. I casually checked the crash reports and the adress pointers point to different random memory locations. This says much about the quality of 0.5.0 version.

The good news is that many people who use bitcoins for real purchases on silk road don't even run the software on they'r computers, they instead use web-based wallet services. I will not comeent about safety and anonimity of this practice on this topic, but this means that the change of interface to appeal to noobs are getting less important to success of Bitcoin. Bitcoin already are success!

OK, here I got the quick, unpolished vision how 0.4.0 based client can be improved. Not so much changes, because it's already good as it is now.

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/6328/mockupg.png


changes:
1. The download of blockchain is displayed in statusbar. It's either progressimeter or percent counted.
2. Current bandwidth utilization
3. New Advanced menu with items such as "Manually Add Peer..." and "Rescan Blockchain" and other command-line only switches.

I tried to imagine and visualize how to improve the Qt version. But I figured out that it's like trying to make elephant fly like a colibri bird. It will never happen, the Qt version UI is so unergonomic and the Qt is not meant with MS windows UI in mind. So I see no way to make the current Bitcoin version as usable as it was in 0.4.0

  YES!  I assume the peer menu would allow to view existing ones so we could add or remove. maybe also set a priority order as well.  Rescan within client, hell yeah!

  And for the love of all that is holy, make it so when we double click a trasnaction in the list it actually gives some useful info. Like, what friggin addy it was sent to and from!

1 and 2 are good ideas, but i think a graphical solution is still better. or both with a switch in the options menu. for most users, the numbers are just a little bit too much information. they just want to know if the connection is good and the blockchain is up to date. or not. rescan blockchain should also be in the avaible somewhere, alongside an explanation when it might help.


yeah well, whats the alternative? sticking to wxwidgets gui obviously nobody wants to maintain doesnt seem like a good plan either.