Halite BitTorrent Client 0.2.6

[Copernic Reporter]

Halite BitTorrent Client 0.2.6

Halite is yet another open-source BitTorrent client and is based on the excellent libtorrent library from Rasterbar Software. What makes Halite stand out is its remote control interface allowing you to monitor and control the program from a mobile phone. Hailte is written in unicode so it will only run on Win2k or higher.

Website

Download Halite (473 kb)

What's New:

This is a pre-release of Halite v 0.3. It is not feature complete, most obviously the remote control interface is not yet implemented. However the reason for the release is that a) it's the first release on SourceForge and b) as a BitTorrent client it is perfectly functional. As a pre-release there is currently no installer, the program ships as a single exe which can simply be extracted to a desired location and run. It is recommended that you put the exe into its own folder to keep it and the files it creates in one place. This is not a necessity however.

Changes from v.0.2.5

1) Fixed a silly bug whereby exiting Halite from the tray would screw up the window layout next time running it.

2) Added auto-selection to Torrents list to make it more intuitive.

[Shasoosh]

why do people bother when they know there's something like utorrent?

small, lite, prefect.

[Veedems Veteran]

why do people bother when they know there's something like utorrent?

small, lite, prefect.

Because more choice is always better. It's the same reason Neowin is around. Why bother when there's hundreds of other sites? Options, thats why.

[:: Lyon ::]

I'd still stick with uTorrent :)

[Azusa]

why do people bother when they know there's something like utorrent?

small, lite, prefect.

because what works for one person dosen't work for all

[noroom]

If this gets close to ?Torrent, I'll switch. For the opensourceness.

[Copernic Reporter]

If this gets close to ?Torrent, I'll switch. For the opensourceness.

Already seems to be very close to ?Torrent, Halite is very small too and i got some nice download speeds. At the first release of ?Torrent i remember very well that BitComet was the nr.1 people choice, only time will tell.:) :)

[ThePitt]

why do people bother when they know there's something like utorrent?

small, lite, prefect.

the more, the better

[noroom]

Already seems to be very close to ?Torrent, Halite is very small too and i got some nice download speeds. At the first release of ?Torrent i remember very well that BitComet was the nr.1 people choice, only time will tell..:):)

Yeah, I know. It was amazing.

Anyway, the program is still in an Alpha state, and honestly, I hate the interface so far. Not a big fan of the ?Torrent interface either, but at least it works. I'm looking for something that provides at least ?Torrent options (minus the scheduler. I don't have a use for it) and is as lightweight (or more) but is open source. This looks promising, but, like you said, only time will te:). :)

[IceBrewedBeer]

I'll have to check this out, thanks.

offtopic: Bangbang023, Staind owns and dysfunction is their best album.

[Toology]

*Bookmarked*

I'll wait until v0.3 before I give this a shot. ?Torrent has me completely satisfied thusfar.

[Dark Reaper]

Looks less bloated than Utorrent.

Might give it a shot.

[Update]

because what works for one person dosen't work for all

confuses the **** out of people who don't know what they do...can't wait till redunancy in software ends

and whoever calls utorrent bloated is a ****ing idiot :no:

can't wait to hear what you say once spakin new gui comes out

TANGO ICONS COOL

[Symphony]

... I'll switch. For the opensourceness.

I respect everyones choice and know that everybody is different, but i just can't get over this open-source trend. "Yeeey, this app is opensource, it must be great..." :pinch: :x

Do you really check the source line by line if it is doing anything bad?

Do you the one who will fix a bug if it occurs, rebuild everything, and create a xyzappp-mybuild02811?

Do you know what to do, when you might have fixed a bug, than the main app gets updated?

Do you understand that an opensource torrent app will start a wave of cheater and fake clients?

Do you care about the growing number of client IDs, when one will do encryption fine, and the other maybe will do DHT, then the other clients and trackers have to update because of every single build?

Do you think you will understand another coders idea of coding? Why he made that, why he made that that way, why didn't he did that... Understanding another person's code sometimes harder, than writing something from scratch.

Do you hope that he will document every single procedure just for every wannabe coders out there? Creating a readable code for others sometimes take more time, than creating 3-4 features.

I'm not saying opensource is bad. There are nice opensource applications. But it is not a plus. And don't forget support... countless times the "community" of opensource will just tell you "get the code, fix it yourself", or "don't request a feature, do it yourself". :rolleyes: :angry:

Whhoaaa... Sorry for the rant. :blush: I just had to let it out. This whole fashion trend drives me wild - "Windows should be opensource, it would be better..." :pinch:

Sorry noroom, nothing personal, the 'you' is like 'anyone', i just had to let this out.

/Yes, i'm feeling better. :)

[Daedalus]

Looks less bloated than Utorrent.

Might give it a shot.

Is that sarcasm? If not... perhaps you should define bloated to me.

[noroom]

Do you really check the source line by line if it is doing anything bad?

Not yet, as I'm only starting to learn C++, but as a computer science major and a user in general, I like to know that I will be able to check how my favorite programs work and tweak/modify them to my own likings. Come on, everyone has a little thing they hate/wish to improve about their favorite app. With open source, you can.

Do you the one who will fix a bug if it occurs, rebuild everything, and create a xyzappp-mybuild02811?

I often report bugs to the creators of the software. It's a little easier for me to find and understand bugs than for the average Joe to do so. With open source programs, I can fix the bug myself instead of hoping the creator does it. And since I would've reported it anyway, I might as well do it with this program too, and upload my fixed build. So yes, I would.

Do you know what to do, when you might have fixed a bug, than the main app gets updated?

No, but there's plenty of people I can contact, and plenty of FAQs too. There's no point in me knowing yet, as I still can't modify my fav apps.

Do you understand that an opensource torrent app will start a wave of cheater and fake clients?

There's already tons of cheating programs. And this is not the first open source bittorrent client. Ever heard of Azureus? Hello?

Do you care about the growing number of client IDs, when one will do encryption fine, and the other maybe will do DHT, then the other clients and trackers have to update because of every single build?

That's the beauty of open source. If more people think the client should support this and that, it's much more likely that someone will start working on it than with a closed source client, given the project is popular enough. With closed source, you can only hope the developer has time and likes you and your suggestion. With open source, if it bothers you, you can fix it.

Do you think you will understand another coders idea of coding? Why he made that, why he made that that way, why didn't he did that... Understanding another person's code sometimes harder, than writing something from scratch.

Yes, I agree. Which is why documentation is very important in open source projects, and projects where more than one coder are working on the same component. But hey, if the code is unintelligible it will get documented sooner or later. If not, then probably rewritten.

Do you hope that he will document every single procedure just for every wannabe coders out there? Creating a readable code for others sometimes take more time, than creating 3-4 features.

Um... What are you basing this on? A personal study? Oh, you're just making bottomless statements. I'll reply to it anyway: If you don't want to document your code and make it understandable, you're defeating the purpose of going open source. Now, I can't speak for all the projects at sourceforge and say they're all well-documented, but I can say that they should. Maybe nobody has done it yet, but somebody might. The odds still look a lot better than with a closed source project, don't they?

I'm not saying opensource is bad. There are nice opensource applications. But it is not a plus. And don't forget support... countless times the "community" of opensource will just tell you "get the code, fix it yourself", or "don't request a feature, do it yourself". :rolleyes: :angry:

But that's the fun in it! That you can be part of your favorite application. This is something that non-programmers will not appreciate, but I do, and of course, I was speaking for myself. Plus (again), if the main developers don't want to fix a bug or code a feature, someone else might. If that was the case with a closed source project, you're ****ed. With so many programs there's a tiny bug, a small feature I'd like added, a tiny interface change that would suit me better, but I can't do anything, because it's closed source, and the developers won't listen to me, or don't agree that it's something that's needed. But with open source, I can control what runs on my computer. Also remember that as soon as you run another person's code on your machine, it's not your machine anymore, it's his. Sometimes you're lucky and the code isn't malicious, but there's little way for you to know that beforehand. In fact, a lot of the times there's little way for you to know it after a few months of using it. :o

Sorry noroom, nothing personal, the 'you' is like 'anyone', i just had to let this out.

No hard feelings ;)

[Symphony]

While in many points i don't agree with you, i understand your feelings about the choice, the freedom, and how do you want to put effort to make a software better. I also respect you for the pure fact that you responded very intelligent to my trollish rant. ;)

It seems that we have really different experiences. I had very good times with closed source developers, i'm currently heavy beta-testing 4-5 different applications, they kill the bugs i find, and most of the time they implement the features i'd like to use. On the other hand i had really bad observations with opensource projects: no replies, "do it yourself", unanswered forum topics, and hours lost comparing different builds, and investigating in countless forum topics what each build's disadvatage is - this drives us to my "trying Linux made me buy an XP" rant, but that's another story :).

Take example Xvid: it is a nice effort, good quality, optimal performance etc, but you have to get deep into the discussions if you're intrested in 64bit processing or multi-core support or both. And it is nice to see the differences between different builds in quality, in performance and compatibility. Besides i saw too many nice applications (uTorrent, TotalCommander, irfanView, GOMPlayer, WinAmp etc.) which probably the best in their category, but without open source. While there is ex. Java for open source, and i bet that there won't be a build which won't be that memory and processor heavy as the original.

/Deep offtopic, me hides from the moderator

[iconoclast]

why do people bother when they know there's something like utorrent?

small, lite, prefect.

why bother developing linux when there are already two other options out there (mac and Windows)? :whistle:

[CyberKewl]

The icon definitely needs to be changed. The current one isn't pleasing at all (looks like a robot spider to me). I ended up reshack'ing the exe for the icon to look better.

[tedddee]

Well uTorrent is now dead, time to bookmark this site and hope for the best. :)

[LOC Veteran]

Well uTorrent is now dead, time to bookmark this site and hope for the best. :)

Uh, yeah because Bram Cohen merged with Ludda from uTorrent that makes uTorrent dead. Right-o.

Ah I love conspiracy people!

And welcome to Neowin :p

[APH-Alex]

Looks like he joined a while ago.

[LOC Veteran]

I know, but he's only got 2 posts so I wanted to just get it in there since I never do otherwise :D

[Eoin]

Hello all,

My name is Eoin, I'm the author of Halite and have to admit I was very surprised to find this thread about it here. There have been some nice comments here about Halite and I thank people for that.

Anyway, the program is still in an Alpha state, and honestly, I hate the interface so far.

I am however also very open to criticism and would love if noroom elaborated a bit on the quoted comment. For example did you dislike the GUI from an aesthetic or functional point of view (or both :) )

For me I am unhappy with the functionality of the GUI, for example you can't yet sort the listboxes nor can you select a couple of torrents to pause in one click. There is plenty of room for improvement still.

Aesthetically things are more difficult to improve as you really need a few different points of view. I am thinking maybe of splitting up the bottom half with tabs to reduce the clutter. As for the icon, yep I'm gonna get right on top of that because I hate it too.

Thanks again people, and if anyone has suggestions, pointers or feature requests I would really love to hear them.

Kind regards, Eoin.

[Copernic Reporter]

@Eoin

Nice to have you here and thanks for Halite. :)