Zuul - PHP Front-End for mldonkey / News: Recent posts

Well, it's been some time, and it seems that Zuul development is very unlikely to pick up at any point, for reasons detailed in previous posts. Support for how we want to do things is still lacking in MLDonkey, and it's been so long since any of us have actually used Zuul that there's very little impetus for us to try and push the requisite changes into MLDonkey.

There's word of an XML-based interface to MLDonkey in development, so perhaps when that gets released there could be some renewed interest in resurrecting Net-MLDonkey at least (which was part of the whole Zuul 2.0 plan), but it's much more possible that other projects will carry on for us, instead.... read more

As all of our zero users are no doubt aware, nothing even remotely interesting has happened on the Zuul front in some time. Just to clarify things up for the clamoring hordes, here's the official word: Zuul development cannot continue until we get one of:

A) Enhanced support in the current core MLDonkey GUI protocol (this is unlikely to happen)
or
B) An XML protocol support in core MLDonkey, which we can use instead (apparently this is being worked on)... read more

gecko-, who's helped us out a lot in the past, has decided to just do an all-out fork of the project in order to better support the multiuser environment he's been building. This is for the best really, as to do the multiuser stuff properly, he's had to make some architectural changes which will start interfering with the basic Zuul development if rizzo and I ever actually manage to get some more work done on it.... read more

Activity on the Zuul front has picked up again recently, and it seems like a good time to make some kind of announcement as to the general state of Zuul.

Zuul as-is right now doesn't work with the modern MLDonkey releases, which is somewhat unfortunate, as there's no other web-based frontends that do work, either. The reason for this is that the telnet protocol has been changing from version to version in recent MLDonkey development (as opposed to earlier, when it seemed to be basically stable). The telnet protocol was the easiest to interface with at the time, which is why all the web-based frontends used it for communication, but it proved to be quite a hassle to keep up with the changes.... read more

Our friend Moritz Warning, who also provides us with a German translation, has been working on a mod for Zuul which adds in a multiuser support. As I understand it, this will let you "lock down" various parts of Zuul based on whoever's been authenticating to the system, so if you're sharing your Zuul install with a bunch of flatmates or something, there's a more well-defined structure for doing so.... read more

Many thanks to Alex Klymov for submitting a patch which adds support for mldonkey 2.5.12 to Zuul. This release has been made similar to the previous -extra1 release, which are intended as sort-of stopgap solutions to the changing mldonkey versions until I can finish up work on converting Zuul over to using the binary protocol. You can read about the patch here if you'd like:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=899305&group_id=83666&atid=570222... read more

Hello, Zuulites! It's been awhile since the last release, and this isn't really an "official" release, but I felt we should probably get something out soonish. mldonkey 2.5.4+2 was released a little while ago, which changed the format that "vd" uses to report download information. As a result, the Downloads screen was a bit horked. 1.2.0-extra1 fixes that problem, and it *should* still work with the older mldonkey versions, though I haven't had a chance to test that yet.... read more

Thanks to Anders Norrbring, Zuul's been graced with a Swedish translation, hot on the heels of the Polish translation. Which language will be next? Only time will tell. In related news, we've run out of spots on the Sourceforge Categorization Thingy for languages, so spots on the sf.net Language List will now be decided in battles-to-the-death. Contact me to get your place on the ladder.

Until this gets bundled up into the next release, you can grab it here:... read more

Things have been pretty quiet on the Zuul development front for awhile, largely due to my recent move, but that didn't stop Adam Bednarski from submitting a Polish translation for Zuul. This will get bundled into the next release of Zuul, but until that happens you can grab it from here:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/pl.txt?download

Enjoy!

Greetings from beyond!

You know what this message means. There's a new release of Zuul! We here at the academy are pleased to present our final 1.2.0 release, codenamed TUPPERWARE for all you international-intrigue sorts. Clever people with CVS knowledge may notice that we cut 1.2.0-rc5 as well, but we're impatient and decided it was nigh time to get the actual release out the door, so you won't find an rc5 announcement anywhere.... read more

Hello, Zuulites! I've just cut 1.2.0-rc4, which is the fourth (and hopefully final) release candidate for 1.2.0 (Tupperware). This release adds a Danish translation courtesy Achton N. Netherclift, as well as a number of fixes to the "Shares" interface. Enjoy, and let us know if you find any bugs or want any new features!

Changelog:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=193724 ... read more

Zuul 1.2.0-rc3 has been released. For those not in-the-know, Zuul is a nifty PHP-based frontend to everyone's favorite p2p app, MLDonkey. It boasts a simple, clean design, more functionality than the $600 PDA you've been lusting after, and is guaranteed to make you 43% more interesting at parties.

The biggest update in RC3 is compliance with MLDonkey 2.5.4, which was released last week. The only real part of Zuul which was affected functionality-wise was the Shares screen. We've also possibly fixed the "sorting bug" which occurs in obsolete versions of PHP that Debian still insists on bundling, so if you're still running in the dark ages of PHP, this release may be for you. Also we've introduced a rot13 translation because, well, it's best not to tell. A couple other minor bugfixes round out this exquisite release.... read more

I just cut Zuul 1.2.0-rc2, because I was boneheaded and checked in a version of index.php with a syntax error in it. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. BLAH! If you'd rather not download the whole new release, you can just apply this patch if you want:

http://zuul.sf.net/1.2.0-rc1-parse-error.diff

It's a simple one-line diff. If you're interested in the full release still, point yourself at:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=191411
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/zuul-1.2.0-rc2.tar.gz?download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/zuul-1.2.0-rc2.zip?download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/zuul-1.2.0-rc2.md5.sign?download ... read more

*****NOTE*****
I was boneheaded and checked in a version of index.php with a Parse Error in it. Either grab 1.2.0-rc2 instead, or see my announcement about 1.2.0-rc2 to grab a patch to fix the problem instead. Sorry!
*****NOTE*****

Greetings Zuulites!

It's been awhile but we've finally got another release of Zuul out the door. Behold 1.2.0-rc1! For those not in-the-know, Zuul is a PHP-based frontend for the p2p app MLDonkey. It's got a simple, clean interface and supports all of the features that we find useful for mldonkey. Find out more at http://zuul.sf.net/... read more

Thanks to our friend Moritz Warning from across the sea, we've now got a German translation for Zuul ready for public consumption. I'm not going to bundle it in with the 1.1.2 release, so you'll have to just download it yourself if you want, from here:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/de.txt?download

You may also note that we've started to use the two-letter code for languages, rather than spelling the full thing out. You can expect this trend to continue.... read more

I released 1.1.2 knowing there were a few Dutch phrases missing, because the bugs fixed in 1.1.2 were known to be affecting a number of people, and I wanted to get it out there as soon as they were ready. Now, thanks once again to Lennard Warnaar, we've got an updated Dutch translation with the new phrases.

If you've already downloaded 1.1.2 and want the new translation, I've made the text file available here:... read more

I've just released Zuul 1.1.2 for the betterment of humankind. For those of you unaware, Zuul is a PHP-frontend for the MLDonkey P2P app. In addition to supporting all of our favorite MLDonkey features, it brews a mean cup of coffee. This release features two somewhat important bugfixes:

1) Zuul wasn't really handling MLDonkey authentication properly, and in some circumstances was basically unusable. This has been fixed.... read more

I know that as soon as a new version of Zuul is released, there is a huge flurry of internet traffic rivaling that generated by a Slashdot article about a new kernel release, Homestar Runner update, and Photoshop Phriday combined, as all of you clamor to stay up-to-date and get the first peek at all of the wonderful new features.

"But what of security?" I asked myself. "How will all these fine human beings KNOW that they are getting the One, True, Untainted Source from wherever they're getting it from?"... read more

The latest-and-greatest Zuul 1.1.1 has just been released, so grab it if you want it. This release is primarily a bugfix release, which addresses a few problems with cross-browser compatibility and adds a bit of functionality to make maintaining translations a bit easier, but there are a couple of new features:

* A Dutch translation from Lennard Warnaar, bringing Zuul's language count to THREE (next to English and AOL)
* A new "range" javascript feature for the checkboxes. Check any two boxes and hit "Range," and all items inbetween the two boxes will be checked for you.
* A "use_javascript" config option (set to TRUE by default) which you can use to disable all the Javascript links if you don't use a Javascript-enabled browser... read more

I've created a simple Translation HOWTO with some information about how Zuul works with Translations. It's probably not made it to the anonymous CVS servers yet, but I did put it up at our sf.net Doc Manager section, at:

http://sourceforge.net/docman/?group_id=83666

Read it if you want to create/maintain any Zuul translations. The section on the "translint.sh" util will probably be of interest to you, in particular.... read more

Thanks to Lennard Warnaar, Zuul now has a Dutch translation available. It's not in any release yet, but I've made the file available on SF.net's page here: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zuul/dutch.txt?download

To use this translation, simply download it and save it to Zuul's "lang" directory, then update config.php to use the new file!

This will be present in the 1.1.1 release I'm planning on cutting sometime during the first half of this week (don't hold me on that, though). If anyone else feels like putting together some other translations for us, you'll get FIVE POINTS from us. FIVE. Think about it.... read more

Zuul 1.1.0-rc2 was just burning a hole in my pocket, so I had to go ahead and release 1.1.0 final. For those unfamiliar with Zuul, it's a PHP-based frontend to MLDonkey. Details and screenshots, etc, are always available at http://zuul.sf.net/

There's a ton of features which set this release apart from 1.0.0, including:
* Download statistics
* Separated Paused Downloads and Files-to-Commit
* Javascript manipulations for checkboxes
* Renaming Files
* Viewing file chunk status
* Support for force_download
* Better feedback for bulk file operations
* Cleaner MLDonkey shutdown code
* Sorting of search results
* The ever-handy AOL translation!... read more

1.1.0-rc2 contains a couple of bugfixes from the 1.1.0-rc1 release, namely a rendering bug for IE (and possibly other browsers), and not displaying ED2k links on networks where there are no such things as ED2k links.

Feel free to give this one a whirl and if you find any bugs, feel free to let us know. If we don't hear anything for awhile, we'll cut 1.1.0 final and then start work on the features we've got lined up for 1.2.0.... read more

I've decided to jump the gun and just go ahead and release Zuul 1.1.0-rc1. This is the first (and hopefully last) release candidate for 1.1.0. No new features will be accepted for 1.1.0, but if you find some bugs, feel free to let us know about 'em and they'll get fixed.

Here are some of the new features you'll find since the 1.0.0 release:
* Download statistics
* Separated Paused Downloads and Files-to-Commit
* Javascript manipulations for checkboxes
* Renaming Files
* Viewing file chunk status
* Support for force_download
* Better feedback for bulk file operations
* Cleaner MLDonkey shutdown code
* Sorting of search results
* Zuul makes far fewer connections to MLDonkey core for bulk updates... read more

In our first non-release-releated news item in quite awhile, I thought everyone should be aware that we are officially open for business in #zuul at FreeNode. Feel free to stop on by and say hi or shower us with praise. We'd do it for you!

Check out http://freenode.net/ for more information on FreeNode if you're not already familiar with it.