Faster startup with background scanning of shares, Room walls, Importing your user list from Soulseek NS and more

Though I initially intended room walls to be the centerpiece of the next SoulseekQt build, most users, and especially those who share more than just a few thousands of files are probably going to be much happier about the initial re-scanning of shared folders when the client starts being moved to a secondary thread. If you're used to your SoulseekQt client taking anywhere between an uncomfortable number of seconds to start to, according to some reports, several minutes, chances are the new build will all but eliminate the wait. In the interest of full-disclosure, the re-scanning of shares is normally a two phase process that consists of first reading the contents of all shared folders from the file system and then incorporating the information into the client's data system. The second phase still takes place in the main thread, and with a very large number of files can still take a few seconds to complete, during which time the client won't respond. But the much lengthier process of actually reading the file system will happily take place in the background.

Room walls are basically a repackaging of the room ticker system from the original client. Room tickers were one of the last remaining items on our list of major original client features missing from SoulseekQt, but it's one we've grown to be a little irritated by over the years. The idea of the same lines of text cycling endlessly in an almost subliminal fashion was one we were hesitant to replicate. At the same time, we've always felt that the highly transient nature of chatrooms, which may work well for very large rooms, but not so much for much smaller ones, would be well-complemented by a more persistent dimension. We've envisioned a simple kind of bulletin-board associated with the room where users can post what they will, and there it'll stay for some time. Structure-wise, tickers had already embodied the qualities of bulletin-board posts. Only one post per user per room would help prevent flooding. The server already keeps all users in the room knowledgeable of existing and new tickers. We further tweaked the system to make tickers remain even after the user has left the room and repackaged the whole thing as the Room Wall in SoulseekQt. And with users already setting their tickers via Soulseek NS, we would have content to fill it with before the system even launched. Use the Room Wall button in almost any room and you'll see how it works.

Finally, a few important changes and additions:

• Your user list from the original Soulseek client can now be imported via Options->Extras. There's a process involved, but it's all outlined when you click the Import button.
• Only one notification button will now appear per window, as before.
• Configuration data is now only saved once an hour, instead of every five minutes.
• Re-enter search button lets edit your search text.
• Excluded download file types are now case-insensitive.
• Search results from unshared users will not be processed.

Links on the download page!

Thanks, Nir