Search Correlations, Saved Filters

The idea of search correlations came to me about a week ago with a jolt and an a-ha moment as I've been going through my list of features in the original client that have yet to be implemented in SoulseekQt. One item in particular stood out as a real take-it-or-leave-it deal. Ye Olde and Notoriouse Things I Like recommendations system has reached a point of total entropy years ago. It's still in use, but almost nothing has changed. The things that were at the top of the list five years ago are still there, effectively unbudged. Everybody more or less really likes the same things. But there's a big difference between what people like, and what people are curious about. The algorithm that correlates items in one's list of things they like is quite effective, but could be put to much better use if applied to what people are searching for. Many server reboots later, the system appears to work. In SoulseekQt, this added value is rather unobtrusive. Search for something with existing correlations and a list of them will pop-up to the right. Click on any item in the list and it'll be entered into your search box, ready and willing. I've already come across a slew of intriguing pointers, as well as a fair number of redundancies, and a few common misspellings.

If you've used search filters at all you probably know by now how handy they can be. But typing iscbr minbitrate:256 mfif:8 for every search when you know how you like it gets tiresome. This I knew almost as soon as I got filters working. I knew I wanted to let the user have the ability to save their filters, and the way it ended up is about exactly how I envisioned it. A save filter button to the right, a dropdown of saved filters to the left. You'll find a nice bit of dynamism at work here if you play with it long enough.

Additionally:

  • There are now separate tabs for manual searches and wishlist searches. I find it to be a neater arrangement as one often has to leave their wishlist result windows open so as not to receive them again, and in this way they don't clutter regular search results.
  • The limit on peer message sizes was greatly increased, so browsing very large shares should work now. (Thanks to user lolobxl1007!)
  • General improvements to the widget focus system and action bar.
  • Event icons now flash in taskbar/dock/tray once per second instead of every two seconds to improve their visibility.
  • Fixed a crash related to removing wishlist entries.
  • That's it.

Links on the download page!

Thanks, Nir

Comments

nowaysir1's picture

hi,

rly nice idea to create a linux version, using slsk since 2002...I was absent a couple years...discovered the linux version :)

works great on fc16.x86_64, keep up the great work Nir!!

regards

Thank you! I'm glad to hear it works well for you under Linux. I don't get much feedback from users on the platform.

Cheers, Nir

I'm also on Linux, and nice to see there is another client for this OS.
I was having some issues with Nicotine+. I really like the Nicotine+ client, it has some really good features (not present in old Soulseek client nor in new SoulseekQT client), but it works sluggish as hell.

Problem was, I was having issues while trying to download a folder from a particular user (he was using SoulseekQT for Windows).
No matter what we both tried, I couldn't download a folder from this user (while I was able to download without a hitch from other users, and other users were able to download from him).

First workaround: I tried with the old SLSK client from a VirtualBox and I was able to download.
Second workaround: then, I also tried running the latest SoulseekQT build from Linux, and it worked too.

So, to summarize: I don't know exactly what was happening between my Nicotine+ install and his SoulseekQT install that didn't allow me to download from him. Soulseek and SoulseekQT clients worked fine. :D