Hi, I signed up to help with climateprediction.net.

I had no problem with the install; the EXE was fine for me. Good job. The BOINC manager is techy but tidy enough.

However, there are many other issues that make me want to uninstall it. Here they are, for what they are worth.

1. The preferences are far too complicated.

Suggestion: Most of that should be in an advanced section, with a few basic settings like max disk space and whether to work only when idle. Sensible defaults for all the rest.

2. The preferences should not be in a web form.

Suggestion: Please make them part of the application.

3. Far too much disk space required by default.

Perhaps this is only a CP.net issue, but it obviously wanted GBs. I set it to 0.2GB, as that seems more than reasonable for an individual contribution.

4. Total lack of useful feedback.

BOINC started up doing nothing. CP.net says it will immediately ask for your details, this is not true. Eventually I figured out the "Attach to new project" would help, added my CP.net login. Still nothing. Couldn't even tell whether anything was working correctly.

Eventually I noticed a log message that "there was work but you don't have disk space".

Suggestion: the main project page should show clear indication of any errors preventing it from working. (One summary, not every log message).


5. UI problems and complexity

The message log is not selectable and copyable. This makes it very difficult to report errors.

Too many tabs. I know as a developer we like to model everything in the app on screen, but thats a mistake.

Suggestion: one main screen with the projects, and underneath that the highlights of the selected project (with nice graphics or whatever, like SETI@home). I can't see why I need separate work, transfer, messages and disk tabs.

It should show what it is currently doing and how far along that is, e.g. "Downloading CP.net core 56%".

6. Multiple downloads, silent installs

I don't want to install separate parts. I see it is now downloading some exe file. I hope its not going to install that automatically. Oh, it did. Unacceptable. No, you may not silently install new EXEs on my PC.

7. Web site issues

CP.net has too many sections. It's confusing. Preferences should be immediately editable, not view first. Why is the FAQ in two places. What is "model download"? Oh, it means "Download CP.net?"

I predict I will be asked to read the manual.Sorry, documentation is irrelevant. For tasks like this to work they have to be so obvious that docs are not necessary. I had a look at the BOINC Wiki but that is also kind of ugly and confusing. It takes quite a bit of reading and clicks even to get to the part that explains using the app.

I know, all this is going to sound horribly harsh to people who have obviously done a lot of good work. The point I am making is that the end result is still very offputting to new users, so that it will be very limited in spread.

(Disclaimer: I'm a software developer.)

Grr, this was really annoying. Having made it thru I will keep it running now for a while ... :/

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Welcome - and thank you for an excellent "new user review". Many of the things you've listed are things that MANY of us have listed. Some are already improved in BOINC Client versions now in alpha and beta test. Others are "on the list" but haven't made it to the top yet. Some pieces, such as the tabbed-window, probably will never make the list to be changed; once you've signed up for multiple projects and used the application for a while, you'll understand the need to have all that information readily available. There may be a better way to do it... but so far, the tabs work pretty well.

One comment - if you have your computer(s) hidden, it's very hard to give any specific help. No "personal" information is revealed to others, although you can see some things on your version of the page others can't. Take a look at other people's data and see if you're comfortable un-hiding your computers. (Second thought... I don't know if the fact it says "hidden" HERE means anything at the project's site; if yours aren't hidden, ignore this paragraph.)

I assume from the fact you say the messages tab doesn't copy/paste, you're on a Mac; if so, it's a known bug and my personal pet peeve, because so far it's NOT fixed in the latest betas. If you're not on a Mac, please elaborate on this one.

Multiple downloads/silent installs... no choice on this one. I think it's spelled out in the signup docs for the projects, but a quick explanation; the BOINC Client downloads the necessary "science application" when you join a project, automatically. And, any time the project updates that application, the new version is automatically downloaded over the old. Some projects use different science apps for different work units, so you may have multiple apps from those projects, changing as different work units come along.

Run what you have for a couple of weeks - and I'd suggest joining another project, so you can see why things are the way they are - then take a look at running V4.72; it's not the current beta (which is 5.something) but it has most of the fixes without the "major version number change" issues. After a bit with that, you'll be able to decide if you want to try V5.x before it's released, or just wait.

Oh... by all means, read the Wiki, and make suggestions about improvements to it as well! It's a work in progress...

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I had a look at the BOINC Wiki but that is also kind of ugly and confusing. It takes quite a bit of reading and clicks even to get to the part that explains using the app.

One click is too many?

Off the main page you click on BOINC Application Owner's Manual and there you are.

I would be fascinated to learn how to do it faster. :)

I do grant that things might be made simpler. And the Wiki sure is not perfect. If you have a suggestion on how to make it better, we do try to implement suggestions.

With regard to its beauty, well, like all things in the computer world we have to do the best we can with the available tools.

Because BOINC is open source, you can also be part of the solution in that you are a software developer. Make a change and submit it to the project and there is a good chance they will add it to the baseline. JM VII did the CPU scheduler, the Statistics Tab in the BOINC Manager was also completely done by an outside developer.

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Perhaps this is only a CP.net issue, but it obviously wanted GBs. I set it to 0.2GB, as that seems more than reasonable for an individual contribution.

Hi,
CPDN need at least 700 MB to complete a slab model. If you've only allowed 200MB, your model will simply crash.
Use at least 1Gb for slab and 2.7 Gb for a sulphur model.
@+

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Hi Bill,

Regarding copy and paste from messages tab: no this is not a Mac, it's Windows 2000, SP4. Perhaps XP allows copy and paste from plain listboxes - that would be a good improvement from Microsoft, but I doubt it :). In any case, the messages log should be a multi-line entry field (read-only) so that any part of it can be selected and copied.

I don't know if my computer is "hidden", but in general I don't reveal any personal details unless there is a good reason, so I might have selected not to show.

UI tabs: I understand the multiple project reasoning, but I think it's irrelevant. Ordinary users don't need the level of detail that is presented, and it doesn't need to be grouped in such a technical fashion. Anyway.

Silent installs: I also understand why this is attractive to the developers. Nevertheless, it is not a good idea. It's a security hole, because it only takes one virus-ridden PC at Berkely, or a mistake in development, or a mischievious student, for the new version to destroy my PC. This kind of project goes on good will and I'm not happy to give the benefit of the doubt for a random series of installs, forever. Why does it need to constantly be updated? The old SETI@Home had manual updates and worked OK.

Cheers

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I'll also add one more thing: there are far too many forums. I could not find where I had posted this! There must be more than 30 possible forums, with some on CP.net, and some on BOINC. I could not find a link to this forum on cp.net. I looked under my cp.net. There is a section called BOINC message board, but it doesn't go to the BOINC forums. This must be fragmenting the user base ...

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CPDN need at least 700 MB to complete a slab model. If you've only allowed 200MB, your model will simply crash.

Hi,

Well actually it doesn't crash, it just detects that it doesn't have enough and doesn't run (silently).

I now see in the technical requirements page that it needs 600MB. That is a bit unexpected and should be on the main download page not buried. Maybe its the same as seti@home, but if you asked me I would have guessed it would take a few MB of space.

Regarding "slab" and "sulphur", I have no idea what those are, you've lost me. They are not mentioned anywhere in the standard documentation. This "2.7GB" is not mentioned in the technical requirements.

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Regarding copy and paste from messages tab: no this is not a Mac, it's Windows 2000, SP4. Perhaps XP allows copy and paste from plain listboxes - that would be a good improvement from Microsoft, but I doubt it :). In any case, the messages log should be a multi-line entry field (read-only) so that any part of it can be selected and copied.

We won't be able to see your computer here in the Boinc forums, since it's not a Project, so you didn't attach your computer to this project, thus there's no checking the actual computer or OS unless you say so. :)

Anyway, I have Windows 2000, SP4. Boinc 4.45, 4.72 and 5.1.3 all allow me to do things like this:
20/09/2005 04:46:33|BOINC alpha test|Pausing result wu_1125088040_1437_3 (left in memory)
20/09/2005 04:46:33|LHC@home|Resuming result wjun4A_v6s4hhpac_mqx__12__64.2654_59.2817__4_6__6__65_1_sixvf_boinc16609_0 using sixtrack version 4.67
20/09/2005 05:46:33|Einstein@Home|Resuming result l1_0983.0__0983.3_0.1_T11_S4lB_2 using einstein version 0.03
20/09/2005 05:46:33|LHC@home|Pausing result wjun4A_v6s4hhpac_mqx__12__64.2654_59.2817__4_6__6__65_1_sixvf_boinc16609_0 (left in memory)
20/09/2005 06:46:33|SETI@home Beta Test|Resuming result 03oc03aa.9124.738.686074.125_3 using setiathome_enhanced version 4.02
20/09/2005 06:46:33|Einstein@Home|Pausing result l1_0983.0__0983.3_0.1_T11_S4lB_2 (left in memory)
20/09/2005 07:46:33|SETI@home Beta Test|Pausing result 03oc03aa.9124.738.686074.125_3 (left in memory)
20/09/2005 07:46:33|SZTAKI Desktop Grid|Resuming result 6163d03c-a8ea-490b-80cd-c87f61f87b76_0 using search version 4.21

That's done by clicking on a selected line in the Messages tab, holding Shift down, clicking on another selected line (by random in the above example), then clicking the Copy selected messages button on the left. Pasting the results here.

I don't see what problem you have, unless you're running an older version than 4.45 in which this may have been more difficult, by having to rightclick on your selection of text and chosing the copy from a dropdown menu.

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I'll also add one more thing: there are far too many forums. I could not find where I had posted this!

Then bookmark/add to Favorites them all. All of us here participating in multiple Boinc projects do. The Boinc server software comes complete with their own version of text based forums, called the Boinc forums.

These forums here on the BOINC website have only been recently added, to take the heat off of the Seti forums, where people thought they could dump all their Boinc related problems, since UCB makes both Boinc and Seti.

Each Project has their own set of forums. Some with more, some with less options. So if you participate, you just bookmark them.

I could not find a link to this forum on cp.net. I looked under my cp.net. There is a section called BOINC message board, but it doesn't go to the BOINC forums. This must be fragmenting the user base ...

I doubt that the user base cannot read the descriptions.

BOINC message board
A BOINC style discussion forum for people participating in the BOINC version of climateprediction.net. Integrates nicely with all the other BOINC functionality.

Against

Climateprediction.net discussion forum
Our long-standing phpbb forum is a good place to visit for discussion about the project

I think you'll find that the user base there isn't so dumb.

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Silent installs: I also understand why this is attractive to the developers. Nevertheless, it is not a good idea. It's a security hole, because it only takes one virus-ridden PC at Berkely, or a mistake in development, or a mischievious student, for the new version to destroy my PC. This kind of project goes on good will and I'm not happy to give the benefit of the doubt for a random series of installs, forever. Why does it need to constantly be updated? The old SETI@Home had manual updates and worked OK.

Cheers

the idea is to remove the need to download and install new apps manually, making sure that everyone is running the most current version, as in classic days, not everyone updated, the security threats of this have been taken into account and for a new app to be accrpted it needs to be digitally signed, and the isolated computer with the key pair is most likely only accessable to a very limited number of people, if you're really concerned about securty, seti is open source, so you can check the code yourself :)

and as for a student distributing a malicious app, well they probably won't be able to sign the app because of not being able to access the isolated computer holding the info they'll need, also if they're part of this project, surely they'd have to know what they're doing to get the job, which most likely means that they're interested and care about the project and want to see it working, rather than hijack it, because why would they risk their place on their uni course just to spread some pointless virus?

the reason it needs to be updated sometimes is related to your previous comments, fixing bugs, adding new features, making things better etc. and to be able to do this silently is a great feature, and makes the science more valid if everyone is crunching using the latest version

And as for classic updates, how do you know that what you were downloading was an actual science app? as far as I know it was probably easier to distribute a virus or similar with classic, you only had to update the website, but there may have been some authentication system I'm unaware of

Lee

2. The preferences should not be in a web form.

Suggestion: Please make them part of the application.

not such a good idea, this was the case with classic, great if you only have one computer, very annoying if you have even 2 or 3, never mind more, because for each computer you had to change the prefs manually, where as with BOINC and web based prefs, you set them in one place, and (eventually) they are distributed to all attached hosts on that account, much much easier :)

hope this explains why these choices have been made

Lee

Of course for ultimate convenience, it's desirable to set prefs locally on one machine and have them propagate to all projects on all other machines on the same account via the web.

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Cheers,
Gary.

2. The preferences should not be in a web form.

Suggestion: Please make them part of the application.

not such a good idea, ...
hope this explains why these choices have been made
Lee

I see the reason. But it doesn't make sense. Most of the preferences only apply to an individual computer? Why would I want the same disk space settings for every computer, when each one could be completely different?

I certainly wouldn't want the same settings on my home PC (fast Athlon64, lots of disk, lots of cheap bandwidth) compared to my work PC (slower, older laptop with limited space, expensive bandwidth).

I guess if you had a small farm of computers it would make sense.

But I bet that 95% of SETI@Home users had only one computer.

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Of course for ultimate convenience, it's desirable to set prefs locally on one machine and have them propagate to all projects on all other machines on the same account via the web.

Ah, of course, didn't think of doing it that way, as long as you would still be able to change the prefs from a web based form, i've heard many issues relating to someone being on holiday and BOINC hogging their phone line, and the solution was to login remotely change the prefs, and it will propogate, i just think it's a very handy feature, but yea, from the host would be good too :)

Lee

Regarding message forums:
how is "bookmark them" a solution to finding the forums? That's a non-sequitur. I'm talking about the difficulty of finding them in the first place (remember my thread is about "comments as a first time user".)

The worst problem is that there are a set of forums at
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/
(this one!) which are not linked from CP.net, yet on CP.net there are listed other forums with the same purpose.

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_help_desk.php
which seem to be general BOINC forums, not specifically cp.net - so this is 100% overlap with the the first set;

another here
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_index.php
with the title "BOINC message board" but subtext saying its actually specifically about cp.net on top of BOINC

a whole lot more here
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/index.php
which include a whole set of technical issues sections, which are presumably also mostly overlapping with the first two sets.

In all there are something like 30 forums.
There might be technical reasons why these are all separate, but it's just confusing.



Regarding copying messages: I never noticed the "copy messages" button. I was trying to copy using Ctrl+C, you know, the standard way of copying?

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Anyway, the original point was to give impressions as a new user.
There is no point "arguing" with impressions, the only point is to look at it and see if there are ways to make it easier/less unexpected, in order to encourage more people to sign up. Multiple steps with confusing options and little feedback (PERCEIVED) will discourage them.

I know I'm discouraged, and I've uninstalled BOINC. For comparison, the original seti@home I ran for more than a year because it was simple and enjoyable.

(Final note: as a user, I don't want to CARE about this "BOINC" thing. I just want to help out "climate prediction" or whatever. BOINC should be a silent part of the infrastructure and only appear when multiple projects are installed.)

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2. The preferences should not be in a web form.

Suggestion: Please make them part of the application.

not such a good idea, ...
hope this explains why these choices have been made
Lee

I see the reason. But it doesn't make sense. Most of the preferences only apply to an individual computer? Why would I want the same disk space settings for every computer, when each one could be completely different?

I certainly wouldn't want the same settings on my home PC (fast Athlon64, lots of disk, lots of cheap bandwidth) compared to my work PC (slower, older laptop with limited space, expensive bandwidth).

I guess if you had a small farm of computers it would make sense.

But I bet that 95% of SETI@Home users had only one computer.

*EDIT*
As far as i know it's something around 80% of people have only 1 host, but if you compare the total number of hosts in the "1 host/user" group and "2+ hosts/user" group it's a lot closer to 50% (something like 40% of hosts are part of the "2+ hosts/user" group) and this represents a large majority of crunching power (see point further below)
*EDIT*

but in that case the web prefs need to be improved, and maybe have the option to have seperate prefs for each host, but for groups of them, just use the venues, that's what they're for, I just feel that by having them as part of the app and not web based (and so won't propogate to all hosts) it is not worth the hastle for the people for multiple computers comapred to the slight increase in conviencince for a single-host user (and anyway, there's a "project website" button on the projects tab, and quite a few projets now have a "your account" button, and it take the same number of clicks as if they were part of the app itself, so i don't see the gain, and if there is one, it's not really worth it, as most of the big crunchers (who do a vast majority of the work for projects) have *lots* of computers, and i'm sure many would be put off by app only prefs (imagine having to update 30-40 computers!!)

Aaron,

Well, we hate to see you go. :(

But, you are correct, if this is not fun, it is time to leave. And forgive us for our enthusiasm. Once you get over the issues and into the "swing" of things BOINC is not really that much more complicated than SETI@Home. After using it for a long time, most of us forget how long it took us to get used to SETI@Home Classic and we carry this image around that it was always so easy ...

The message boards here are for BOINC and BOINC Only discussions. The project message boards are for issues and discussions related to the project side of things. Because for a long time there were no message boards for BOINC Only questions the participants used the project boards for discussions of BOINC.

Since the infrastructure comes with BOINC, as it were, then yes, each project looks like all the rest and the whole shebang looks more complex.

On the up side, you have a "standard" structure so, if you do 10 projects you do not have to learn 10 different web sites. And, most projects now add buttons to the task pane in the BOINC Client to take you directly to the project web sites.

Well, anyway, give us a try later ...

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Anyway, the original point was to give impressions as a new user.
There is no point "arguing" with impressions, the only point is to look at it and see if there are ways to make it easier/less unexpected, in order to encourage more people to sign up. Multiple steps with confusing options and little feedback (PERCEIVED) will discourage them.

I know I'm discouraged, and I've uninstalled BOINC. For comparison, the original seti@home I ran for more than a year because it was simple and enjoyable.

(Final note: as a user, I don't want to CARE about this "BOINC" thing. I just want to help out "climate prediction" or whatever. BOINC should be a silent part of the infrastructure and only appear when multiple projects are installed.)

Indeed, arguing is pointless, however I am only trying to explain the possible reasons why certain choices have been made, also keep in mind that there are a very limited number of people trying to run a large project, or in the case of SETI 3 projects (SETI@home classic, BOINC, & BOINC/SETI) so things won't be as neat and tidy, well thought out, or as developed as say M$ apps that most people are used to, they're on a limited budget and doing the best they can

The source code is freely available, edit and send in your suggestions/improvements

but surely what works best for the project is the most sensible idea, as it's hard enough running one without extra difficulties, "but a project is pointless without users!" i hear you say, well, very ture, but if a project only exists to please users to the point of not being able to adaquarely achieve their goals then what's the point in the project? BOINC has the features that projects want, "classic" worked, but boinc is the next step, improving many aspects, one of the main ones being better validation of actual science, which is the whole purpose of the whole distributed computing effort, science, and ineveitably that means more complex ways of doing the overall goal, in order to better achieve it

and yes, i agree, simple is nice and easier, but it doesn't fit the needs of most projects now, which is clear as many are moving to BOINC, and simple doesn't always mean better

but in general yes there are a lot of things that should be imporved, no questions asked (i've suggested many myself) but taking some perspective on this, with not offence intended towards new users (we have each been a newbie at some point) the way a new user thinks something should be done, isn't always the same that an experienced user think it should be, usually after understanding the reasons why a certain decision was made etc.

don't forget, everyone partisipates of their own free will, you don't have to continue, and may leave at any time you wish

and yes, i agree, simple is nice and easier, but it doesn't fit the needs of most projects now, which is clear as many are moving to BOINC, and simple doesn't always mean better

Actually, *I* think one of the main reasons that projects are moving to BOINC is that it is substantially cheaper in that a huge amount of the infrastructure is already done. So, they do not have to reinvent the wheel.

*I* like it as a participant because I can add new projects as they come on line. At the moment I am running 7 different projects across my "farm" and loving life. One of my biggest hang ups in the dark ages was that I could not do more than one project per computer ... now, I have choice ... and in the not to distant future, well, I will have too many projects to choose from ...

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