ethen:
i have to admit, reading your first post it seemed you were just finding fault for the sake of it, and i responded accordingly. i can see though now that you have lots of good ideas.. thanks for taking the time to show me them.
my main focus is to get the client connecting, chatting, searching and downloading (i didn't sit and design the ui at all, it was just something i threw together while being determined not to use the standard button bar and make it a napster/kazaa clone ui). i do indeed plan to revise the ui over time, and your example looks
very nice. it's vaguely reminiscent of the windows xp user accounts screen, but prettier.
as i said, the end plan is to make the client skinnable, not taking it as far as say winamp3 does but being able to change just about all of the colours, graphics and layouts in the client. for a default skin, something close to the looks of shareaza and the simplicity of xolox is my goal.
i'm not out to make a bland client. note that my two examples of good looks and usability are both gnutella servents - all the opennap clients i have seen, winmx, audiognome and the less well-known - use highly deriviative uis, to maintain the spirit of an 'open napster'... something that looks and works like napster, with enhancements. there are enough clients like that around that making another becomes just about pointless.
the screenshot is of an early alpha version, and so it's by no means too late for the default ui to change and my own to become a skin (if it's included at all in the end). if you'd like to help out more in the ui area of the project, then email me at
alphabeater@hotmail.com. i'm interested to see and read any more ideas you've got. thanks again.