FAHClient V7.3.4 released

[jcoffland]

This release incorporates changes which address most of the issues that were brought up in beta testing v7.3.2.

Beta Downloads


Documentation
Installation and user guides can be found here:
FAHControl -> The Graphical User Interface (GUI) what controls the Slots.
FAHViewer -> It shows the protein being folded, if applicable.
Pictorial Installation Guide (Windows) -> A detailed pictorial guide on the V7 installation.
Installation Guide (Windows) -> A brief guide on Windows installation.
Installation Guide (Linux) -> A guide for Linux installation.
Installation Guide (OSX) -> A guide for OSX installation that is in progress.
Client Remote Interface -> Documentation for 3rd party developers.
Main Page -> Main page of the V7.

Getting Help
Aside from the documentation the best place to get help is in this forum. If you do have a problem post a message. There are many knowledgeable people ready and willing to help. Keep in mind, we greatly appreciate thorough reports delivered by patient people who can keep a cool head even when things go wrong.

Bugs/Tickets
Open Tickets Ordered by Milestone and Priority
Active Tickets by Change Time
Note: Some tickets may be closed because they are fixed in an upcoming internal release but are not yet fixed in the beta release.

Change Logs:
FAHClient:
v7.3.3:

• Simplified FB link.
  
• Added Twitter and email links to Web Control header.
  
• Pointed Google +1 link to http://folding.stanford.edu/
  
• (Un)hide passkey on mouse over.
  
• Fix logic error in previous fix for #965.
  
• Fix Web Control in IE8.
  
• Switched Twitter accounts.
  
• Don't show RECONFIGURING when slot is turning off.
  
• Fix CSS caching problem.
  
• Added warning for unsupported browsers.
  
• Removed throbber.
  
• Added new -gpu-vendor core option for upcoming Zeta core.
  
• Install but don't enable screensaver by default.
  
• Upgraded Web Control to jQuery 1.9.0 and jQuery-UI 1.10.0.
  
• Added option 'open-web-control'.
  
• Folding@home shortcut starts FAHClient and opens Web Control in Windows.
  
• Fixed: Finish-pause-finish does not finish the WU. #961
  
• pause-on-start is now means set folding power to off at startup.
  
• Remove old FAHContorl desktop link from v7.2.9.
  
• Added uninstall reason reporting.
  
• Use away mode notification instead of user input for idle in Windows.
  
• Faster remote updates.
  
• Added 'idle' option for individual slots.

FAHControl:
v7.3.4:

• Trigger save on folding power change.
  
• Fix folding power reset problem on options save.

v7.3.3:

• Fixed OK/Cancel buttons off bottom of screen at some resolutions. #904
  
• Don't show selected client status in add client dialog.
  
• Added folding power slider.
  
• Removed client Fold/Pause/Finish/View buttons, use slot popup menu.
  
• The links for project, WS & CS can extend to the edge of the window. #977
  
• Changed Quit to Exit.
  
• Added --exit command line option.

FAHViewer:
No change.

FAHScreensaver:
v7.3.3:

• Don't start FAHClient.

Screensaver & Power Management
The screensaver is now installed but not enabled by default in the Windows installer. It will also no longer attempt to start FAHClient as this is expected to always be running.

I've also switched from using time since last user input to using the system power setting notifications in Windows. This should solve the problem of Idle F@H slots becoming active while you are watching a movie. Now Idle slots should only become active when the screen blanks. In Windows at least.

In OSX the power management queries were consuming a lot of CPU. This has been reduced.

Web Control
I've made a number of fixes to Web Control. It should now work on IE8 and will warn if you open it in an unsupported browser. The Facebook widget was not working well so I changed this to a simple share link. See the change log for more details.

FAHControl Changes
FAHControl now has its own folding power slider bar. I've removed the Fold/Pause/Finish/View buttons from the main toolbar. These can still be accessed, per slot, through the popup menu by right clicking on a folding slot. The conflicts between pause and folding power should now be resolved as well.

Another thing you might notice is that the interface updates much more quickly when you first load or switch between clients, at least when connected to v7.3.3 FAHClients. I fixed a piece of code that was supposed to be making updates faster but was actually slowing them down.

Windows Installer Changes
Aside from not enabling the screensaver by default, as mentioned above, the installer now creates a "Folding@home" shortcut which both starts FAHClient, if it's not already running, and opens Web Control. This ensures that FAHClient is started before Web Control.

The installer will also try to shutdown any running FAHControl in addition to shutting down FAHClient. Although it can only shutdown v7.3.3+ FAHControl.

In addition, I've added a drop down box in the uninstaller which asks you to tell us your reason for uninstalling. If you leave it to the default then nothing will be reported. Otherwise it will contact a server at Stanford to record your selection. We hope to use this to better understand why people might leave F@H unhappily and then focus our attention on addressing the most common reasons.

Conclusions
I'm hoping this beta will put us much closer to the next public release. We are in a feature freeze until a public release. If there are any outstanding issues which are serious and aren't already problems in the current public release please let us know.

Thanks again for all your input. Although I don't always comment on every issue, I do generally read everything posted to the release threads. Your comments have prompted most of the changes from v7.3.2 to v7.3.3.

Happy hunting,

Joseph Coffland
Folding@home Developer
Cauldron Development LLC

EDIT: We found some problems in v7.3.3 with the folding power not being saved when set from FAHControl and it getting reset to the default when you save the configuration. These have been fixed in v7.3.4.

[Nathan_P]

Well, install went without a hitch, picked up my old settings and off it went. I can confirm that for me at least web control now works in IE8

[Nathan_P]

FAHControl no longer has any project info visible, all you get is a link. In web control these are shown by default, is this because even advanced users are expected to run web control unless they are actually changing settings?

[Nathan_P]

Here's one if you are using the slider for a SMP slot and change its setting mid WU, some WU will accept a change in thread count and carry on, some will reset to zero and start over, i think it would be a good idea to have a tool tip or message warning people that changing the slider mid WU could cause their WU to restart from scratch

[jcoffland]

Here's one if you are using the slider for a SMP slot and change its setting mid WU, some WU will accept a change in thread count and carry on, some will reset to zero and start over, i think it would be a good idea to have a tool tip or message warning people that changing the slider mid WU could cause their WU to restart from scratch

It will only be restarted at zero if you haven't gotten to the first checkpoint. If you move the slider around you can loose a small amount of work. Maybe up to several minutes worth depending on the project and core.

[Jesse_V]

Some suggestions on FAHControl:

• The WU information area on the right has odd spacing on my monitor (1600 by 900). The information between PRCG and Estimated TPF is bunched together, Project has large margins on top and bottom, FahCore - Expiration is together, and Work Server and Collection Server also have large margins top and bottom. These should be held together as one, but perhaps the line spacing could increase a little bit.
• It seems odd to have empty whitespace between the Exit and About buttons, and then have the Folding Power slider jammed in with everything else in the center. Some areas of the interface now seem empty, and others seem crunched. I notice areas where the text is really close to one another, such as between Identity and Off, Idle Light and Points Per Day, things like that. FAHControl would look a bit better if items and text where more evenly spaced overall.
• It's not obvious that right-clicking on the Folding Slot shows per-slot options such as FAHViewer. So much effort was put into developing FAHViewer to get it working, and now it seems very hidden.

Web Control looks good though.

In FAHViewer, I keep seeing https://fah-web.stanford.edu/projects/F ... ticket/963. I'm currently processing an SMP WU that has 83 snapshots, and only the odd and whole numbered ones are displaying.

[Evil Penguin]

Fahviewer crashes for me.
Before it couldn't load core 17 WUs properly and now... crashes upon starting fahveiwer (same with viewing SMP).

I'm running W7 x64 and Catalyst 13.2 beta 5. I have a Radeon HD 7970.

[DarkFoss]

Both the Win 7 x64 gpu client and the Virtualbox Mageia 3 beta 2 smp (linux) client upgrades went just fine. Gpu resumed folding the smp had just finished prior to the upgrade. Webclient's working as well. Fahviewers launch haven't watched them to any length of time so can't comment on any snapshot issue.

[7im]

FAHControl no longer has any project info visible, all you get is a link. In web control these are shown by default, is this because even advanced users are expected to run web control unless they are actually changing settings?

No. This is because advanced users know how to find project information if they want to read it, but most advanced users don't read the project info (at all, or at least more than once). Or if they do occasionally read it, the link in FAHControl is sufficient to provide the project info. If they want project info served up like room service, run the Web Control. Basic info like project info doesn't need dedicated space in an advanced tool like FAHControl.

[DragonLord]

I'd like to say that the new Web interface is cool, but it really leaves me wanting. Here are some suggestions:

• Host the Web interface locally (on the client) and fetch any online content as needed. This ensures that the user can access the Web interface offline, albeit with some loss of functionality. (As appropriate, continue to host the interface on Stanford servers as well, perhaps with the ability to remotely manage other systems running Folding@home as well.)
• Allow the user to configure slots and perform other manual control in the Web interface. I'd rather not have to go to the advanced control panel to manually start or stop slots.
• Offer an option to choose between manual and automatic folding power controls, so that advanced users continue to get the level of control they expect.

I understand you're probably working on this, but implementing these suggestions would make it easier to manage and control Folding@home clients.

--DragonLord

Mod Edit: Merged Post - PantherX

[PantherX]

...

• Allow the user to configure slots and perform other manual control in the Web interface. I'd rather not have to go to the advanced control panel to manually start or stop slots.

...

The Web Control is aimed towards new users and simplicity is the key which is achieved by the abstract of all the slots into a single performance slider bar. With the default settings, the user doesn't notice any interference with their daily application as it runs in the background so why would one need to stop/start it? If a new donor wants to pausing folding, they simply move the pointer to "Off" and then they can resume it back later when they feel like.

The feature of individually pausing slots is for experts since they are more knowledgeable in the F@H section and know what PC components are controlled by what slot. If you want, you can always use the FAHControl and simply avoid the Web Control so this eliminates the need to "jump" between the two interfaces.

[bruce]

I'd like to say that the new Web interface is cool, but it really leaves me wanting. Here are some suggestions:

• Host the Web interface locally (on the client) and fetch any online content as needed. This ensures that the user can access the Web interface offline, albeit with some loss of functionality. (As appropriate, continue to host the interface on Stanford servers as well, perhaps with the ability to remotely manage other systems running Folding@home as well.)
• Allow the user to configure slots and perform other manual control in the Web interface. I'd rather not have to go to the advanced control panel to manually start or stop slots.
• Offer an option to choose between manual and automatic folding power controls, so that advanced users continue to get the level of control they expect.

I understand you're probably working on this, but implementing these suggestions would make it easier to manage and control Folding@home clients.

--DragonLord

Probably not.

The design of the webcontrol web page is aimed at people who want to contribute to the research and not be bothered with details such as how to do anything mnore than move the slider to find a performance level that suits their choice of contribution level. There's no reason for them to know what a slot is or how to configure one. You'll have to choose whether you consider yourself an Advanced Donor or a Novice. There are a lot of potential Donors who will never visit this forum and are not interested in any technical details other than perhaps which disease their contributions are going toward.

For someone who does want to manually configure things, Advanced Control (formerly FAHControl) still works, and it is "locally hosted." It still has the same ability to control of all features that it always has had provided you add a setting "power=full" which effectively moves the web control slider to FULL.

[DragonLord]

I'd like to say that the new Web interface is cool, but it really leaves me wanting. Here are some suggestions:

• Host the Web interface locally (on the client) and fetch any online content as needed. This ensures that the user can access the Web interface offline, albeit with some loss of functionality. (As appropriate, continue to host the interface on Stanford servers as well, perhaps with the ability to remotely manage other systems running Folding@home as well.)
• Allow the user to configure slots and perform other manual control in the Web interface. I'd rather not have to go to the advanced control panel to manually start or stop slots.
• Offer an option to choose between manual and automatic folding power controls, so that advanced users continue to get the level of control they expect.

I understand you're probably working on this, but implementing these suggestions would make it easier to manage and control Folding@home clients.

--DragonLord

Probably not.

The design of the webcontrol web page is aimed at people who want to contribute to the research and not be bothered with details such as how to do anything mnore than move the slider to find a performance level that suits their choice of contribution level. There's no reason for them to know what a slot is or how to configure one. You'll have to choose whether you consider yourself an Advanced Donor or a Novice. There are a lot of potential Donors who will never visit this forum and are not interested in any technical details other than perhaps which disease their contributions are going toward.

For someone who does want to manually configure things, Advanced Control (formerly FAHControl) still works, and it is "locally hosted." It still has the same ability to control of all features that it always has had provided you add a setting "power=full" which effectively moves the web control slider to FULL.

There should be a setting in the web interface that allows the user to switch between basic and advanced modes, with the appropriate settings in each mode.

--DragonLord

Removed off-topic edit

[bruce]

That might be added someday, but in the meantime, the design assumptions are that advanced/expert donors can figure out a lot of things for themselves. If you're in Windows, you can select Advanced Control or Web Control from the systray Icon or you can choose from the All_Programs folder. It needs to be a fundamental CHOICE, not a matter of constantly switching back and forth.

[texinga]

Noticed that V7.3.4 did not carry over my CPU Slot from V7.3.2, but it did carry over my GPU Slots and settings. It was no big deal to add the CPU Slot back-in via FAH Control, but thought I'd mention it.