Phex - P2P Gnutella filesharing program

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: Phex 3.0.0

Notes:
With Version 3.0 Phex has its first major release since July 2004, and we'll 
take this chance to have a look back, a look on the wealth of new things which 
found their way into this cunning fox in the course of two years. 

(The impatient among you can simply jump to the "Changes since 2.8.10")

==== Phex 3.0 ====

Among the first things you'll notice when switching from 2.0 to 3.0 (skipping 
all those versions in between to get a real taste of the changes) are the much 
improved search, download and library pane, which now feature user-defined 
filters, user-selectable download-strategies and regexp filtering for your 
shared files, as well as completed translations into German, Dutch, French and 
Turkish.

But those are just the paintings on the fur of this quickly evolving fox. In its 
belly, muscle and bones there have been fundamental changes, which make this fox 
faster and more cunning than ever. 

== Switch to Java 1.5 ==

First, really deep down inside, we now switch to Java 1.5, exactly like we 
switched from Java 1.3 to Java 1.4 in Version 2.0. This means, we'll have a hell 
of a lot of chances for optimizing and doing things we couldn't do before 
without hacking too deep to keep it cross-platform. 

== Rewritten Download Code ==

Also we rewrote all of the download code, which now saves into single files 
instead of the collection of parts it used before, and which now allows you to 
throttle the bandwidth used for each single download. We did this to get a full 
integration of the changes done by Nick Farrel, who did the first step into the 
download strategies by making it possible to choose download-parts by their 
availability, which now is the default way Phex uses: It downloads the rarest 
parts first (those which are available from the least number of hosts). Also the 
size of download-segments is now adjusted in such a way, that each segment takes 
a user-configurable amount of time (just take a look into the Download options), 
so Phex chooses bigger segments from faster sources and smaller segments from 
slower ones. This makes downloads less prone to waiting forever on the last 
segment and increases overall download speed. 

The strategies allow you to configure for each download, if it should prioritize 
segments from the beginning of the file, from beginning and end, random parts or 
rare parts. You can get more in depth information on strategies at 
http://wiki.phex.org/Download_Strategy

Also the download pane was redesigned to give you more information in a simpler 
way and to make it more pleasing to the eye (and you might want to check, if you 
can see that fox twinkling :) ). 

== Uploading and Network-code ==

Uploading started Thex-support: Tiger Tree Hashing which makes File corruption a 
thing of the past because it validates every single segment others download from 
you. It will be integrated into downloading in subsequent versions. 

The Library now allows regexp filtering of shared files, hiding of selected 
folders and exporting your shared files to various formats. 

On the network-side Phex now includes support for UDP-Hostcaches, the new 
bootstrapping method in Gnutella, which takes some strain off the GWebCaches 
(even though we now also operate our own GWebCache, which helps drawing Phex 
closer together). Many thanks to Madhu for implementing this. 

== Private Networks and Magma-Lists ==

Phex now makes the creation of Private Networks far easier, so that you can 
create your own subnetwork for your forum, website or similar (Further 
information: http://wiki.phex.org/Creating_a_private_Network ). 

Also it makes it possible to send your file-list to your friends by using 
Magma-Lists, which are essentially lists of magnet links and can very easily be 
created by clicking the "export" button in the library. These also make it 
possible to subscribe to content, as you'd do it with an RSS-Feed. 
See http://wiki.phex.org/Decentral_Content_Distribution

== Searching and user-defined Filters ==

The searching part now includes the 'What's New" search which was introduced by 
LimeWire. It allows you to do some pretty powerful result-filtering based on 
conditions and consequences. This enables you to filter by size, name or file 
type and to create your own powerful filters.

It comes shipped with 3 predefined filters: An adult filter, a known spam filter 
and a scam file filter; the third blocks those files which are most often used 
by spammers or which can easily be used to invade your privacy, for example 
files ending in .asx or .wma. To see what exactly these predefined filters do, 
just go into search and select "edit" in the filter-rule pane. Then select one 
of the filters and click the "edit"-button in here. You will now see the rules 
with which the respective filter was created. 

Also the Phex backend now supports queries by UTF-8, thus allowing searches 
using international characters. 

And with this, we concluded our tour through the changes inside this fox and 
come back to the surface, where you'll notice the all new IconPacks, which 
decorate the fur of Phex. One of them uses the famous Tango-Icons which are also 
used in Firefox and the Gnome Desktop. They are the first step into allowing you 
to modifying not only the inner workings of Phex, but also its outfit, so you 
can adapt it even further to your needs. 
http://www.phex.org/wiki/index.php/Icon_Packs

== Meet up in the Foxes Den ==

Did the development get you as excited as the Phex Team? Or are you still 
missing something? 
Should there be a feature, you'd simply love to see in Phex, or should 
excitement just now have taken over, then please come into our forum: 
http://forum.phex.org or into our wiki: http://wiki.phex.org and add a feature 
request or write your praise, or better still: code the feature yourself and 
contribute to the Phex codebase. 
We are always looking for developers, and there are numerous features and ideas 
awaiting realization - and we are sure, that you yourself have a few more 
features up your sleeve, which could make Phex a better program. 

For additional information how to contribute to Phex, please check
http://wiki.phex.org/Developers_Wanted

And now for those impatient ones, who simply want a short list of the changes 
since version 2.8.10


==== Changes since Phex 2.8.10 ====

On the interface-side Phex now has a new way to handle downloads, so you can set
a target-folder for each download individually. Also the splash screen can now 
be hidden by left-clicking on it. 

Below the surface, Phex got an all new and more structured system for handling 
preferences, which further improves the separation of GUI and Core. Additionally 
a download write buffer is used to reduce the load on your disk. 
(If you want to use Phex headless, please have a look at our wiki: 
http://www.phex.org/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Questions )

Additionally there were some nasty little bugs, which made the mistake of 
tumbling into the spotlight and got squashed by the hands of our main
programmer. :)



Changes:
3.0.0 Final (2007-01-07)

- GUI: Configuration wizard helps to choose the basic configuration settings for
       Phex on first startup and after an important upgrade.
- GUI: New download configuration dialog with more options.
- GUI: Implemented concept of IconPacks that allows users to build own set of 
       icons.
- GUI: New IconPack based on "Tango Project" (http://www.tango-project.org).
       Thanks to ArneBab
- GUI: Added search filter consequences to automatically ban the ip or download 
       the file of a matching results.
- GUI: After over 5 years, finally a new splash screen.
- GUI: Splash screen can be hidden with a mouse click on it.
- GUI: Improved search result rendering performance during scrolling.
- GUI: Candidate search information is displayed in download overview and 
       transfer panel.

- CORE: Integrated a download write buffer to reduce disk access.
- CORE: Improved detection of invalid and spamming query results.
- CORE: New improved preference handling.

- FIXED: Removed various memory leaks occuring on long running Phex instances.
- FIXED: Downloads report invalid candidate errors when they use a host name 
         instead of an IP address.
- FIXED: The upload queue used to report a wrong position and length value.
- FIXED: A very low bandwidth limit caused connection threads to run into long 
         lasting lock situations.
- FIXED: When closing a search using the search button the search tab didn't 
         reflect the closure.
- FIXED: QueryResponse GGEP COBS parsing error.
- FIXED: The check to determine the number of missing connections had a minor 
         calculation error.
- FIXED: Resolved various UDP host cache bugs.