Interface Optimization

[MrBison]

Bitcoin is a very nice system, but the program's interface could have a little work. Here is my concept of the interface (somewhat inspired by a some proprietary payment system's Windows interface):

Instead of separate tabs for 4 kinds of transactions, we have four "filter" options":
1. All transactions / Sent or Received transactions / Sent only / Received only.
These work just like the tabs above.
2. Today / Last 3 days / Last week / Last month / Last quarter / Last year / All time
This filter allows you to see only the recent transactions, and also is a nice way of cleaning the transaction list for the user.
3. All receiving addresses (works only when "Received only" is chosen) / (list of receiving addresses)
Allows you to easily sort received transactions by the address they were sent to.
4. All recipient addresses (works only when "Send only" is chosen, supposed to take the place of button #3)
Allows you to sort the transactions by the address you sent them to.

The text boxes "n/unconfirmed" and "n confirmations" are replaced by images, followed by a number of confirmations. There is no image for transaction with extensively large amount of confirmations (it may be 100 or 1000, but for sake of illustration, the "secure" icon is just at last 3 "confirmed" transactions)

(those grey transactions are NOT supposed to be shown at all, but are shown semitransparent for the sake of illustration)

The balance needs some currency indication, so the new users don't think the balance is in dollars/euros/pounds/yen/anything else.

The second tab is "Address Book". It works the same way as the "Sending" part of the address book button on the toolbar. An extra button "Transactions..." switches to the first tab, sets the filter 1 to "Sent only" and filter 4 to the address that was selected by the time the button is pressed.

The third tab is "Transaction Options". It probably will contain such options as:
"[X] Add transaction fees to transactions automatically" (with no extra message box)
"Default transaction fee per KB: [0.01]"
"[ ] Allow modifying transaction fees for separate transactions" (with a message box like "Warning! Setting transaction fees as too low will result in your transactions being done slower." and respectively a new input field in "Send Coins" dialog)
"[X] Create a new receiving address after each transaction received" (so if someone turns it off, no extra addresses will be automatically created)
and others.

[caveden]

Nice.

I don't know why keep two different columns for Debit and Credit, if we can have signs. Eliminate one and add a column with the balance after that transaction, it's more useful.

[LZ]

caveden, yeah, we have to think about that.

By the way, I optimized the vertical space usage a little bit.

[sirius]

By the way, I optimized the vertical space usage a little bit.

The vertical optimization looks good. Simplified transaction status and address book tab are nice too. "At your address" should be "Your address", as balance and the shown address aren't related. What do you think should be in the Market menu?

The description could be something prettier than a Bitcoin address. When sending a payment, the user could add a note to self, but in a way that can't be confused as a message to the recipient.

We should add API options to the options panel. And maybe the option to add peers manually.

[ribuck]

"At your address" should be "Your address"

Clarity for newbies is important. I think this label should be "Your receiving address".

[MrBison]

Only the [Send] button should be located near the balance and still called "Send coins", 'cause in the mockup #2 it looks like you are sending an address to someone else.

[MrBison]

Or, let's continue looking at WM Keeper's interface. I am not using it for a long time, so here would be the screenshots taken from other sites.



The first tab is the "Address Book". Bitcoin's analogue would be "Sending" tab of the Address Book.
The toolbar buttons are: Find, Send WM, Make a bill, and the context menu button.

The buttons that would work with Bitcoin would be "Send Coins (to that address)" and "Find transactions sent to the user".



"Your Purses" tab. The fields are: Name, balance, ID, creation date. Basically, it's like Bitcoin's addresses, only with separate currencies and balances.

The toolbar buttons: Add, Refill (balance), Send WM (from) and the context menu. The BitCoin version of that is "Receiving" tab in the Address Book.

Usable in BitCoin: "Add a receiving address" and "Show transactions received into this address."



"Incoming" tab. The BitCoin version is, obviously, the main window and specifically it's "Received" tab.

The toolbar buttons: Remove (from the list), Remove All and the menu button.

The "Remove" button is a thing I'm sure many bitcoiners would like to have. It hides the transaction from the list. As a nice alternative, there could be a "Show hidden transactions" checkbutton, that would make one able to see the transactions removed, and the "Unhide" button to make them non-hidden again.

Basically, my idea of the transactions list would be the one on the first mockup screenshot. No extra tabs, three filters, (probably the "Hide" button for transactions and the "Show hidden" checkbutton added).



And the "My WebMoney" tab. It's basically a small how-to into using WebMoney, buying/sellling/receiving/sending WM and so on (also functions as a list of supported businesses that use WM). That would be a nice feature to add into the Bitcoin's interface to make users much less confused, but that would require much work.

[MrBison]

The top bar of WM Keeper's window has the user's WMID and the balance of their accounts. Basically, the now-existing Balance and Your BitCoin Address labels serve the same thing, except the buttons should be moved to the "Address Book -> Receiving" tab (as in the 1st mockup screenshot).

Personally, I think Bitcoin should have it's own somewhat unique interface, but the problem is the current interface we have just does not work for a virtual currency program.

[bitcoinex]

[Gavin Andresen]

So... who's excited about doing either a little wxWidgets programming or a lot of "port the bitcoin GUI to Qt" programming?

This isn't going to happen unless somebody actually does it...

[LZ]

I started creating a Qt interface a few days ago, but I need a design concept.
And also after testing that interface, we may make patches to the main client.

I mean, we will choose best solutions for backporting to the wxWidgets version.

[tcatm]

I'm working on a RPC GUI using either pygtk or wx (haven't decided yet). It will be similar to js-remote.

[genjix]

So... who's excited about doing either a little wxWidgets programming or a lot of "port the bitcoin GUI to Qt" programming?

This isn't going to happen unless somebody actually does it...

So I made this, http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3451.0

Where are all my bitches?

Or does it need to be ported to C++?

Supports internationalisation and everything. I just need to add a screen for downloading the block chain and a settings window (have been a little busy with other projects last 2 weeks).

[wumpus]

So... who's excited about doing either a little wxWidgets programming or a lot of "port the bitcoin GUI to Qt" programming?

I decided to give this a shot and I've ported the Bitcoin GUI to Qt4 (in C++). In doing this, I've tried to keep the GUI visually as close to the current Wx one as possible, just changing the widget toolkit. This will help not startle the users too much



Improving the GUI is of course possible after this. I think this is much easier with Qt than with Wx because it is a more powerful toolkit.

I'll make a pull request on Github after I've cleaned up the code a bit and made sure everything (including internationalization) works.

[Matt Corallo]

I decided to give this a shot and I've ported the Bitcoin GUI to Qt4 (in C++).

You did what now? Amazing, do you have a public repo already so we can have a look?

[wumpus]

You did what now? Amazing, do you have a public repo already so we can have a look?

Not yet, I'll deal with the github stuff end of this week.

[Gavin Andresen]

Will all of the internationalization/translations from the wxBitcoin port straight over to qtBitcoin?

[wumpus]

Yep, by using the same strings everywhere as  in the Wx client. Qt has tr("...") instead of the _(""), but it works exactly the same.

[wumpus]

Progress on this is still continuing; nearly all the dialogs and the taskbar icon are implemented and working like in the original client. However, integrating with the Bitcoin core is turning out to be somewhat more involved than expected, as there are a lot of hairy bindings with Wx that don't really fit the Qt model/view paradigm. So even though not part of my original plan of "just dropping in the new GUI", I need to do some plumbing work for a bit cleaner separation.

I still hope to have a minimally functional (and integrated) version up some time next week.

[wumpus]

I've pushed the current state to github:

https://github.com/laanwj/bitcoin-qt/