MacTella 1.1 is a new version of the Mac client for the Gnutella file sharing network, bringing GUI improvements for more user customization, support for aliases, filtering, and sound preferences for certain alerts.
Comments
LimeWire is a good product from a company that is committed to the gnutella network project. It has the shortcoming that it relies on the Java Virtual Machine in order to run on the Macintosh. For some this is not a problem, for others who expect the look and feel of native applications this can be issue. Mactella is an open source project for a Mac native application that supports the gnutella protocol. Part of the open source philsophy is release early and release often. This leads to immature versions that will disappoint consumers who just want to use an application. But it is done in order to try to enlist the help of programmers who can actually make a contribution. As a result Mactella has attracted the attention of some real SOB's who's only contribution to the world of Macintosh software is their whiny, complaining, loser personalities.
Mactella has achieved considerable advancement and is quite useable for many reviewers (see reviews of recent version on VersionTracker.com and Download.cnet.com). We are also at the forefront of the efforts of gnutella developers to extend the protocol and improve the robustness of the network as well as develop other applications on top of the gnutella protocol. We plan to continue or commitment to P2P development and open source development despite the truly despicable people one has to deal with.
Steve Bryan, Mactella programmer
It is a shame that people who have full rich lives have to be subjected to such name calling. I am someone who apperently does not contribute enough to the "world of Macintosh". The issue for me is I do not have the time to play around with what often seem like basement products.
...for development software. What definitely **IS** awful is the gnutella search facility, which is if anything weaker than Napster's. Because it is an OR-inclusive search, there is just no way to do any kind of discriminating lookup.
Case in point: recently I tried to use Mactella to find a copy of the early Beatles song "Boys." (never mind why) A search only for "boys" returns every song by the beach boys, beastie boys, green mountain boys... while a search for "beatles boys" produces all of the above PLUS every Beatles song on the system -- a torrent of bandwidth-wasting garbage.
As the Gnutella net continues to grow, the lack of phrase search, AND, and NOT will make the whole system less and less usable.
I'm just happy to have Mactella, now that Napster is going down for the count :(
"Because it is an OR-inclusive search, there is just no way to do any kind of discriminating lookup."
Sure there is, it just hasn't been implemented yet. The most recent version of Mactella (v 1.1) includes the ability to filter out specific file extensions using the Search Preferences dialog. This involves post-search filtering because as you seem to be aware there is no effective way for one gnutella client to tell another not to return a search result. By adding a "must match" field to a search it would be possible to filter out all search results that don't include that specific string. My main difficulty with it would be an issue of user interface complexity. I would need to find a way to allow for it without making the interface more forbidding than it already is.
Another possibility is to include a Find capability for search windows. That was already a planned future enhancement which will almost certainly be implemented in the next release.
Steve Bryan, Mactella programmer
"If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right"
It is a shame that people who have full rich lives have to be subjected to such name calling. I am someone who apperently does not contribute enough to the "world of Macintosh". The issue for me is I do not have the time to play around with what often seem like basement products.
Hear hear!
I can understand people who just want to use software and aren't interested at all in the notion of open source software. It is certainly not something that has deep roots in the Macintosh world. But given that position why would one try to take every opportunity to disparage the work of others? You look, you decide it isn't for you (in particular you are neither a Mac programmer nor interested in alpha testing something that is only being made public to allow others to offer their help or advice), you move on. But instead there seems to be a few who devote their efforts to expressing their disdain. What we are looking for on public forums are useful suggestions about issues that are not yet addressed or handled in a way that is satisfactory. Being told, "You suck" would not be classified as useful. So if you get an angry reply try not to be too shocked or act too injured.
Steve Bryan, Mactella programmer
If it's not ready for primetime, don't call it a version; call it , then people will know it's not feature-complete and still a work in progress, and will use it accordingly.
Simple, isn't it?
And yes, I know your readme says it's not a full-blown version etc... but who reads readme's?
OR
Network Headlines
Most Popular
MacNN Sponsor
Recent Reviews
MaxUpgrades MaxConnect for 2006-2008 Mac Pro
Nobody outside of Cupertino's privileged bunch knows the future of the Mac Pro line for sure. Despite Apple's reluctance to tell us wh ...
Brother HL-3170CDW LED Printer
We've mentioned before that we are far from a paperless society. For now, at least, there are tasks that require a piece of paper for ...
HTC One
It is hard to overstate just how critically important the HTC One is to the Taiwanese company’s fortunes. Despite its alarming decline ...
Most Commented
Popular News
Joined:
LimeWire is way better
Mactella has sucked since day 1.
LimeWire (or even Furi!) is much, much better (and available for native OS X too!)