The Present.. and The Future

Yes, Open Transport makes internet things easier to configure. But, there is still much room for improvement.. I've heard that in future releases, it will have the ability to send and receive on multiple ports. First thing I thought was "GREAT!". But then I thought about how it would likely be implemented.. Probably, not very well. I thought about what would allow the most flexibility, and decided that a patchbay method would work best for both port<->host and port<->application linking. This would work best (if you had multiple ports with different speeds) if each setting had a fall-back ability as well. That way if one link died, things would jump to the secondary link.

But anyways, to explain what I'd like it to look like (and of course, do) a little better than endless jargonic ranting. A picture below of the software in question shows the changes in layout and nifty doodads that would allow for easy and extensive configuring...this of course would be in the "Advanced" user mode, since a lot of this would be completely unnecessary to most people.

So far this is just my first draft of the interface (and probably my last if no one comments on it), but it fits in the same window space and has everything I've thought of so far..

And the App Patchbay button would open or bring to front a mini-app that would look like this:

Further Explanation

Hopefully, it's all pretty self explanatory. But there are parts (buttons, popups) that probably wouldn't be clear unless you could click on them. For instance, the Port pop-ups for each IP address would also contain the port names in the Connect via box. And the ports in that box, could either be clicked or shift-clicked. The fall-back settings could be kept in the Options window. The Host window is essentially fills the same function as the Configurations window in the current OT TCP tool. The Ping etc button would open a window (another mini-app would be good) for configuring those protocol returns if you want them (and have the right kind of connection).

All of this, would make it a lot easier (and self-contained) to configure your machine to several internet accounts, serve multiple IPs/domains, make efficient (cost effective) use of whichever connection types you have (higher bandwidths cost a lot more to use over time), and return standard TCP queries. And most of this, all in one window.

back to complaining or hacks->