Just some options that would make it easier to work with:
A more fancy gui. It should be easier to use so my mother can even use it.

If you double-clik on a work-unit you should get to see the graphics. And maybe some information about the project if you left click on it, like what it does for humanity.

If you're placing your mice a few seconds on a button it should give you some yellow textbox that gives some simple explanation of the function.

Those messages that you get in the message tab should be replaced with some buttons. f.e. if you are disconnected to the internet you should see a button that shows you're disconnected. And if you click on it, it should reconnect.

For the laptop:
If you put your laptop on stand by with Windows XP and you put him on again it takes some time to type your password and the wireless connection takes some time to connect to the internet. If boinc doesn't find immediately an internet connection you get a message that boinc can't connect to the internet and you have too click yourselve on the button 'reconnnect to the internet'.

First it would be easier on a laptop with wireless internet that boinc has a longer time out before giving that message and the other thing is that you shouldn't need to get that pop-up ok button that you have to reconnect. It should automagically reconnect to the internet when you're wireless is working again. It should only give that error if you are not connected to the internet for a long time.

I hope you understand what I have typed

You're right most of the buttons already have tooltips stupid of me! But maybe you could add tooltips too the tabs.


More buttons in the simple view so you don't need to have the advanced view and replace the advanced view with simply the log. And a lot of those buttons of the advanced view could be putted in an options/ preferences window because most of them you use rarely. You could make the pictures of the project bigger in the simple view and if you right click on it you could click the options like 'no more new work'. And the icons should change of you hsve set an option, no more new work. They should get a red cross over it. Just make it really childish so everyone could do all the things that now can only be done in advanced view.

Now I will stop spamming this post

A bit more immediate control over how much work BOINC has in stock.

OK I set the "How often to connect to the Internet variable", but with laptops this changes from day to day. Quite often, the machine only has a few workunits, because the scheduler has "got used" to the machine being connected to the internet while I am at home over the weekend. Then, when I know that there is going to be no internet all day and the machine will run out of work, BOINC refuses all attempts to get it to download more work!

What about an emergency download button? This would be quicker than editing config settings. Limit it so that it only downloads once a day, and only half of your cache setting in one go.
This will avoid people overcommiting.

I had seen the new parameter for extra work, but had not worked out how it works. I like the work to get reported asap when complete, so if I understand what you said correctly, I can set connect to 2 hours or so and use the buffer setting to determine how much work is in stock?

Why does it wait to report completed work anyway? Why not have an option to report immediately if connected to the internet?

Thanks Sekerob. Your point about the results vs scheduler database servers is interesting and explains how BOINC behaves. I had always assumed that manually reporting results that were sitting there was helpful, but this is not the case then. However, if everyone sets the same time for reporting, then will you not get communication bandwidth or processing overload problems at these times?