Bitcoin-Qt, the future Bitcoin client GUI [user input needed]

[slothbag]

When are we likely to see compiled versions available for download?  I spent a few days trying to compile it and gave up.

[wumpus]

How about adding a rolling pulse to the scrollbar that only pulses when a new block gets downloaded?

I've thought about that, but the QProgressBar has no way to do control pulsing afaik, to make it progress indicator and livelyness indicator at the same time.

When are we likely to see compiled versions available for download?  I spent a few days trying to compile it and gave up.

When it's integrated into mainline...

[wumpus]

Though thinking of it, some kind of livelyness indicator would be nice. Indeed, if you have to download the entire block chain, the progress bar moves very slow.
The throbber icon rotates at the same speed whether actual blocks are being downloaded in or not. One option would be to adapt its speed somehow based on the download speed (within reasonable limits).

I think I know a very simple solution: stop the "syncing" icon animation when no new block has come in for a certain (to be determined) time. Given that it's behind and catching up, of course. This makes it clear that the process is "stuck". After all, the most common usecase for livelyness indicators is to see if it is stuck. Now it happily stays spinning even if you pull the network plug

[wumpus]

I know even simpler idea progress bar with block such of total number of blocks being downloaded if you see the such part has not updated in an amount of time you know something is wrong. Not the shinny ooh and ahh fancy graphics but does provide actual useful information to the user to determine what is happening.

As I said, you can already get this information by looking at the tooltip that appears for the progress bar. This is not a matter of information not being available, just of presenting it better.

As I also said before, there is no reason why the user has to be bothered with raw block amounts (or the word "block" at all) in the "dashboard" when the application is working normally. This is a financial application, not a download client. Big numbers in the UI (except for BTC amounts :-) would just confuse/overwhelm users.

[wumpus]

Ah yes the old users are stupid argument thought it would be what you said but was curious so I posted.

Users are not stupid, they just don't need to know bitcoin protocol internals and implemententation details to use it. Seperation of concerns et al... See it as a "private" definition in C++.

This is the kind of UI you'll get otherwise:

[wumpus]

Oh yeah bet they taught you that at usability class in university did they tell you that separate boxes for the amount was a good idea too, later.

By making it absolutely clear what are the decimals and what is the whole amount, it makes sure that comma/dot errors don't occur for international users. This was determined the best solution at the time (it's a non-trivial problem if you send 4,000 bitcoins instead of 4.000). You can jump to the second box by typing either ",", "." or <tab> ...

Anyway, if you have any usability issues with it you can report them on the github tracker. We're waay off topic.

[Matoking]

When are we likely to see compiled versions available for download?  I spent a few days trying to compile it and gave up.

I can compile a Windows version if that's what you're using, just send me a PM or something and I'll most likely do it.

Also, I think the Overview page looks a bit empty/bland as of now. Or maybe it's just me.

[Gavin Andresen]

I pulled Bitcoin-QT into the main bitcoin tree this morning.

[EskimoBob]

bitcoin-qt looks sweet in KDE.
Gentoo still has no working ebuild but source can be compiled with out any problems after you edit the Make file and add "-I/usr/include/db4.8" to INCPATH =

[kripz]

Please make it so when changing tabs the multiple addresses and values do not dissapear.

[Matoking]

It probably is as easy as taking off/commenting out the sendCoinsPage->clear(); function on the line 528 in bitcoingui.cpp.

I'll check it out.

If we are going to remove it, we should also have a "Clear all Entries" button on the Send Coins page, so you don't have to clear every transaction invidually.

EDIT:
Well this is funny. Bitcoin-qt refuses to compile (at least using MingGW) after bringing my fork up-to-date.

EDIT 2 :
Commit https://github.com/laanwj/bitcoin-qt/commit/010c4fc0b5ca8ceccf15417b833bea4ce1016f43 won't compile on Windows while https://github.com/laanwj/bitcoin-qt/commit/5dd7318db75db580d602c72a2322df97d8712233 compiles just fine.

EDIT 3 :
Okay, it seems the commit https://github.com/Matoking/bitcoin-qt/commit/99cec89cb369beb8dce6c92db837bb5951f627d5 breaks compiling on Windows. Everything before it compiles just fine.

Code:

d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xee0): undefined reference to `CreateDCA@16'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xeef): undefined reference to `CreateCompatibleDC@4'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf08): undefined reference to `GetDeviceCaps@8'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf23): undefined reference to `GetDeviceCaps@8'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf44): undefined reference to `CreateCompatibleBitmap@12'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf5b): undefined reference to `SelectObject@8'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0xf7e): undefined reference to `GetObjectA@12'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x1024): undefined reference to `BitBlt@36'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x103b): undefined reference to `GetBitmapBits@12'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10b0): undefined reference to `SelectObject@8'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10bb): undefined reference to `DeleteObject@4'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10c8): undefined reference to `DeleteDC@4'
d:/qtsdk/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../libcrypto.a(rand_win.o):rand_win.c:(.text+0x10d5): undefined reference to `DeleteDC@4'

EDIT 4 :
I've worked around it temporarily by using the old .pro file. Also, implemented what kripz suggested alongside with a Clear all button :
https://github.com/Matoking/bitcoin-qt/commit/609acbf43d8d66102878e47a826c037edc270e46

[jago25_98]

Perhaps some sort of plugin for QRencode might be possible now.

[jimbobway]

Question...I understand that Gavin and Satoshi have a super duper password to notify all clients to display a message.  Was this tested or included in the bitcoin-qt?

[jimbobway]

Question...I understand that Gavin and Satoshi have a super duper password to notify all clients to display a message.  Was this tested or included in the bitcoin-qt?

Can anyone clarify this?

[genjix]

Question...I understand that Gavin and Satoshi have a super duper password to notify all clients to display a message.  Was this tested or included in the bitcoin-qt?

Can anyone clarify this?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification#alert

[muyuu]

Ah yes the old users are stupid argument thought it would be what you said but was curious so I posted.

Users are not stupid, they just don't need to know bitcoin protocol internals and implemententation details to use it. Seperation of concerns et al... See it as a "private" definition in C++.

This is the kind of UI you'll get otherwise:

Looks boss.

[RobbieMor]

The new release looks much better but I still can't find out how much the total fees are to send coins.
My wallet has 0.52390169 BTC and I tried to spend it and got the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .01  BTC tranasaction fee is included" Fair enough so I reduced the spend to 0.51390169 and the get the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .23 BTC tranasaction fee is included"
This doesn't seem right or fair.
How do I calculate what the TOTAL fees are going to be?

[kjj]

The new release looks much better but I still can't find out how much the total fees are to send coins.
My wallet has 0.52390169 BTC and I tried to spend it and got the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .01  BTC tranasaction fee is included" Fair enough so I reduced the spend to 0.51390169 and the get the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .23 BTC tranasaction fee is included"
This doesn't seem right or fair.
How do I calculate what the TOTAL fees are going to be?

There really isn't any way to tell.  The system doesn't know what fees will be needed until it makes an attempt at the knapsack problem of selecting the transactions to redeem.

And yeah, there should maybe be a special case for emptying a wallet, but there isn't.

[mmortal03]

The new release looks much better but I still can't find out how much the total fees are to send coins.
My wallet has 0.52390169 BTC and I tried to spend it and got the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .01  BTC tranasaction fee is included" Fair enough so I reduced the spend to 0.51390169 and the get the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .23 BTC tranasaction fee is included"
This doesn't seem right or fair.
How do I calculate what the TOTAL fees are going to be?

There really isn't any way to tell.  The system doesn't know what fees will be needed until it makes an attempt at the knapsack problem of selecting the transactions to redeem.

And yeah, there should maybe be a special case for emptying a wallet, but there isn't.

I can't believe this isn't mentioned more frequently on here. I'm trying to empty my wallet, and when I adjust the amount to account for the stated transaction fee, the transaction fee just keeps going up. I even tried upping the fee in the options but it still just kept getting larger to where it wasn't worth doing the transaction. This is obviously a bug in the design, and the "knapsack problem" is not an excuse (no offense to kjj). The idea that people can have bitcoins in their wallet but can't spend them is just ludicrous.

[kjj]

The new release looks much better but I still can't find out how much the total fees are to send coins.
My wallet has 0.52390169 BTC and I tried to spend it and got the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .01  BTC tranasaction fee is included" Fair enough so I reduced the spend to 0.51390169 and the get the message "Total exceeds your balance when the .23 BTC tranasaction fee is included"
This doesn't seem right or fair.
How do I calculate what the TOTAL fees are going to be?

There really isn't any way to tell.  The system doesn't know what fees will be needed until it makes an attempt at the knapsack problem of selecting the transactions to redeem.

And yeah, there should maybe be a special case for emptying a wallet, but there isn't.

I can't believe this isn't mentioned more frequently on here. I'm trying to empty my wallet, and when I adjust the amount to account for the stated transaction fee, the transaction fee just keeps going up. I even tried upping the fee in the options but it still just kept getting larger to where it wasn't worth doing the transaction. This is obviously a bug in the design, and the "knapsack problem" is not an excuse (no offense to kjj). The idea that people can have bitcoins in their wallet but can't spend them is just ludicrous.

Sigh.  Please google before you necro next time.