I think as a BOINC user, one falls into one of two categories: You really feel strongly about one or few projects, and sign up for those, and not care about the rest. Or, you want to help as many projects as possible, so you sign up for many, and you want to keep up with any new additions. I was in the former, now I am in the latter.

After I started using BAM! last week, as I was going through the Sign-up for projects page, I really appreciated that the project link in each row pointed at the project's website. But, then I wanted to see how active that project was in the recent history. For that, I had to go to the project's statistics link on the mid-left portion of the screen. I think there should be a "Project Stats" column that links to something like ABC@Home stats page.

Then, finally after I was done going over, what, 70 or so projects, I signed up for many (~40), and left behind many (~30), for one reason or another. Now, when I come back weeks/months later, and look at the sign-up page, I won't remember which projects on there are those I didn't sign up for vs. newly added projects. If there were a "First Seen On" column as it is available on the project stats page, it would great to sort on that and just look at the new projects.

Bonus point round: I don't think this can be implemented without a size tax on the database, but just an idea... Another useful column would be a really short text entry where one can enter something to remind themselves as to why they didn't sign up. Or, to alleviate the size tax, choose a pre-determined reason from a dropdown. I can think of values like: Needs invitation code, not recently active, not interested, too slow, buggy, low WU volume, website down, etc. Such values would later allow me to revisit a project, for instance if the reason was "not recently active" or "low WU volume" but the project status schedulers are now online with enough WUs, or "website down" but now it looks online, or "needs invitation code" but now I have itm etc. You get the idea... The entries allowed in that dropdown could be added to by Willy as the time goes on.

Thanks for listening
Tuna

Tuma, I appreciate your efforts to tell everybody what you would like to see in a stats option. As an obvious new comer to BOINC, it is commendable that you let us know what you are seeing, experimenting and what you wish to see. Please continue to do so for if the Developers do not know what the users want to see than it will never be updated.

This time however, I feel that you are mistaking the reason for the "Sign Up for Projects" option. It is designed to give you the choice of joining an active project for all your computers that you previously have not supported. The idea is that in this option, projects that you have not joined previously be shown. If you already have an account in a project than it will not show. It gives you the option to join all your machines at one time after you are satisfied that you wish to support that site by checking the project site to see what it is all about first. If you decide wish to add that project than it will add it to all your machines. If you only run just one machine that is fine but if you have a hundred than it will update the 100 machines at once. As regards adding weather it is issuing workunits here. I do not think it would be the right place for it. Just think that workunits issued by projects change every minute. Some favorite projects can not keep up with the demand and you need to be there at the right time to catch that newly issued workunit or another user will grab it. I doubt very much that a Stats site could keep up with showing the up to date status at any one time. Please note that I am not a Developer or Admin of the project and I could be wrong, but that is how I interpret it.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

Hello, Peter

1) Tuna, not Tuma...

2) I am not so "obviously new comer to BOINC"... I have been running SETI jobs since Nov'99, Rosetta and World Community Grid since 2010, Einstein since 2011, POEM since 2012. So, having been in this 15+ years, I am no spring chicken at this. I sort of know what I am talking about.

3) I have also been using BOINCstats since late 2007, but only to look at stats.

4) I am, however, new to using BAM!. I was using GridRepublic before as my account manager, because I was the type of user I described below belonging to the first category: I knew exactly what projects I wanted to run, and GridRepublic supported them. So, since early 2000s, I managed about 86 different machines using it.

5) However, lately I found myself having only 8 machines at home, after having retired. And, some of them are rather strong machines. And, I switched from the first category of user to the second category: Not targeting a few projects, but target as many as I can, support as much as I can, even if that means less contribution to each project that I used to participate so far. But GridRepublic couldn't do it; they support only a subset of what is out there.

6) So, I decided to switch to BAM! But, as I said, I know exactly what I am doing here, even though I am new to BAM!.

7) Now, I said I was retired. I was a software developer, later development manager, total of 23+ years, managing a dev team of 40+ developers producing ~$1B revenue/year for a project that you probably have heard of, but I'll keep quiet. That means, when I look at a piece of software, I think of what could be done to make it easier/intuitive for the users. And, I tend to develop opinions. And, I tend to voice them in detail. Thus my many posts lately. I started using BAM!, and immediately developed a sense of how good it was, and through my intense use (literally, 15+ hrs/day over the last few days to get all my machines & projects lines up with the right settings, and now I can say that I am done) I also saw what could have been there to make the process I went through easier with minimal changes.

8) So, while I was "hunting down" projects to sign up for that I wasn't already, this page is where I needed to start. But, looking at a line in that table, say ABC@Home, you don't know what it is. So, you click on it, go to the project website, and get informed. As I mentioned, that is awesome.

9) But, you wouldn't really want to sign up for ABC@Home. Why? Well, for that, you need to go to a totally different part of your BOINCstats screen, (depending on your resolution) scroll down, look at left, see Active Projects statistics, click on ABC@home, click on the Credit Overview, scroll down, and see that for the last 60 days it has not produced anything! Really, you wouldn't want to sign up for that, right? You might, but you really need to see those stats to make an informed decision. So, it would have been great if the project stats link for ABC@Home was right next to the project website link on the sign-up table; that would have cut major time. Remember, I went through something like 70 projects to weed through the jungle and find the 40 I thought were worth adding. There were many reasons why I didn't sign up for some projects, ranging from virus alerts to need for an invitation code. Therefore my suggestions for feature #1 & #3 in my original post.

10) Now that I am all signed up for projects, I won't remember why I didn't for every single one of those that I didn't. If ABC@Home starts producing, I might join it, but not if my reason was "I don't like the cause", but I won't remember that 6 months from now. Thus, my request for feature #3.

11) And, if in 6 months, 10 new projects get activated, and my sign up page grows from 30 to 40 projects, well, I have to remember which 30 I had already decided on 6 months earlier, and which ones are new. But, if the "first seen on" was right there for each project, I could just sort them, and look at the top 10 that would obviously be those that I had not investigated before. Thus, my request for feature #2.

In software development it is rarely what a developer imagines a page/feature should do, but what gets the user do the thing in the least number of steps, with the most comfort, with everything easily at their fingertips.

Of course, I do have my opinions while deeply understanding the tradeoffs between time/money/resources and features. That is why I can simply voice my opinions, put down a lot of details as to my thinking, defend them if need be, and then let the boss (i.e. Willy, in this case) decide.

Have a wonderful day!
Tuna

Hello Tuna (Not Tuma)

Thanks for the explanation. However my statement stands. Newcomer or oldtimer I like your observations and wishes for it makes sence to me. If I was Willy, I would grab you with both hands to help with maintaining and improving this site. It is a job for a retired experieanced person and willy could do with some help as he is still working for a living and he also needs time for himself and family when home. I am also retired and could do with your kind of help in my Black Ops Team. I am not realy advertising here just stating the fact that your calibre would be welcome everywhere. Well done and keep up the good work.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

Awwww... Thanks...