As I have used BOINC continuously for a long time, I find that a couple of enhancements to the BOINC manager would make all the difference in the world.

It seems appropriate that I address them in this forum as there doesn’t seem to be another area in which to state them.

Initially, the BOINC website itself needs to have a link that would specifically allow users to post their suggestions for improvements to the BOINC software and their respective managers.

Now, there are two situations I would like to address for improvement to the BOINC software and associated managers – the GUI interface that we, as users, deal with on our individual computers.

First off, I would like to see a button (link) on each project’s Task or Project tab that allows us to specifically seek new jobs. The button that currently says “update” is frustrating because the message sent says “not reporting or requesting tasks” or “reporting 1 task, not requesting new tasks”, etc. It is frustrating because I am trying to get the program to request new tasks without necessarily reporting any completed task (this actually would force the manager to look for tasks and to work them into the scheduling and priority mix). I mainly do this when I have not had any computing for a particular project for some time that is not due to server down status or no work available, etc. There is no button that will do that other than “Update” or the more destructive button “Reset project”. I would like to have a button that specifically requests new tasks to be downloaded and nothing else. Alternatively, this button could be set to download a project randomly from any of the ones that we are working on, depending on which ones have available tasks to work on. It would be very helpful to have this feature.

Secondly, I would like to see a tab that could launch a menu giving us the opportunity to give the project manager information that will allow it to take into consideration, when it determines the run schedules and priorities, any dates we know that we will be offline like for a vacation. In other words, if we know we will be on vacation or offline for the period of say, May 12, 2010 to June 10, 2010, we could input that information into this new tab sub menu and the project manager will not request tasks, or not allow a manual request for a task, that would have a deadline date within this period or would not allow a task to be downloaded in which the deadline could not be met after the computer returns inline. The menu would have sub selections to specify the dates which would then have the option to be open or closed ended – after date or before date as well and from / to. The sub menu could be modified or deleted if the dates prove to be incorrect or have changed. It could also allow multiple offline dates. Currently, the way I manage this is, to manually reduce the workload, a week or so before the offline dates, by first requesting no new tasks to some or all of the projects, then suspend work on some of those “no new task” tasks that would not be impacted by the offline situation. As I get closer to the offline date(s), I continue to put “no new tasks” on projects until all projects have this designation. Then I put “suspend” on all but one or two projects as my off date gets nearer – to get those to complete just before the offline date. Finally, the only ones I have left do not have project tasks with deadlines that would fall into the offline time or immediately following the return date. The computer then continues to grind away on those projects that have not been suspended, but also, they will not get new work. After I come back online, I remove the “suspend” first (if I don’t, the manager will think I want to download new tasks when I already have one there, just not running). After that, I remove the “No new tasks” designation and the manager takes over from there. All this manual effort could be placed by a simple solution that tells the project manager the dates I will be off line and then it takes over on how to process, prioritize, suspend, and request new project data. Obviously, this tab would have a global (all my projects) effect.

If you have questions or comments concerning these suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]

Thank you,

DS Russell

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Your post is about making it easier for people to use BOINC.

And you've put your email address in the post. Good idea. This will make it easier for spammer's 'bots to find your email address and store it on their computers for later use in spamming.