Client Update: QuickPar v0.6 Avail.

Bugs fixed:

* When creating PAR2 files, if the drop down listbox to change the method of allocation is opened and then closed by clicking elsewhere in the dialogue, the "Number of Files" control can be incorrectly enabled or disabled when it should not be.

* After clicking the Stop button whilst verifying, QuickPar would refuse to reverify the file which was interrupted unless its timestamp was changed.

* When creating par2 files, if you specified a target folder that does not exist, then an error would occur. QuickPar now asks if you want to create the folder.

Changes:

* In the create dialogue, the default width of the Filename column has been increased.

* In the create and verify dialogues, if the widths for the columns in the list of source files are changed, then they will be remembered the next time QuickPar is used.

* When creating PAR2 files, if the source files are added in non alphabetical order, then they are sorted.

* When verifying and repairing, the name and version of the application used to create the recovery files is displayed.

* The file list in the verification and repair dialogue has been changed so that the files are listed in order and their details update as new files are found when monitoring. Incomplete files and other partial downloads will be listed as a branch of the target file in a tree layout.

* If a par2 file is damaged, then that is reported in the list of files when verifying.

* File I/O when verifying files now uses a 32KB buffer size instead of 256KB.

* The CRC32 checksum code has been rewritten in assembler.

* The MD5 hash code has been rewritten in assembler.

* The above three changes have significantly reduced the time to verify files. On a test set of 75 files totalling 8000MB, FSRaid took 227 seconds, QuickPar 0.6 took 236 seconds (using PAR1 data) and 228 seconds (using PAR2 data), whereas QuickPar 0.5 took 585 seconds (using PAR1 data ) and 634 seconds (using PAR2 data). This brings QuickPar into line with FSRaid in terms of verification speed.

* Some changes to the assembler code used for the innermost repair loop have resulted in an increase in in par2 creation speed and repair speed on certain CPUs.

* When creating par2 files, it is now possible to specify the exact number of recovery blocks to create via an edit control with a spinner. The scaling of the Redundancy slider has also been changed so as to make it easy to select small quantities accurately.

* The par2 creation and par/par2 verification dialogues may now be resized.

* Cache files are now placed in a separate location (normally

"%PROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\QuickPar"). They are expired after 7 days.

* The title bar of the verification window now displays the number of blocks/files required for repair along with the name of the file set. This makes it easier to select from several instances of QuickPar on the Windows taskbar. It also makes it a little clearer whether or not a set needs to be repaired or not.

* You can press F5 in the verification window to force QuickPar to reverify all files.

Feature Requests:

* The ability to include non-recoverable files when creating PAR2 files.

* Allow auto-repair to be set by default.

* Add option to not cache the results of verification.

* Add option to place all of the critical packets in a par2 file that has recover blocks at the end of the file (in which case if the end of the file is damaged, verification and repair would not be possible unless copies of the critical packets can be obtained from another par2 file). Possibly include a variation to not include any critical packets at all (this would again require the critical packets to be obtained from another source).

* Add the ability to handle the same command line options that par2cmdline uses.

* Add automatic check for new versions (or reminder telling user their version is "out of date").

Known Problems:

* If you create a set of par2 files in a folder and verify it and then create a second set of par2 files in the same folder with the same filename, QuickPar will mistakenly use the information in the cache file from the first par2 set. Also if you download one set of par2 files and use them to verify, and then download a second set of par2 files that have the same filename to the same folder then QuickPar will again use the cache file from the first set. To work around this problem you should either rename the par2 files or delete the cache file.

Please use the Tracker at Sourceforge to report problems:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=30568&atid=560745

Please use the forums at PArchive for any other feedback and
discussions.

http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=30568

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Best regards,
Peter