Mac users: What bothers you the most about BOINC Manager?

Not being able to select multiple projects/tasks/transfers on the lists? For example, to suspend multiple workunits with one click.
Some part of the manager not looking like the other Mac apps? (The new sortable-column lists look alien on any operating system!)
The user interface inconsistent with other Mac applications?

Or, what new feature would you like to see?

Maybe you'd like to control your whole BOINC farm from a single Mac, and you find BOINCView interesting, but useless because it's Windows-only?

How about notifying you of "finally completed that CPDN task" or "got LHC work" via Growl? (both examples being quite infrequent events!)

Post your complaints, pet peeves, and requests here. Even if they're crazy. Even if they seem a lot of work to get done. Be a nit picker.

Yes, there is a reason why I'm asking this, and why it's aimed at Mac users only. But I won't tell you the reason yet.

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One thing I'd like to see is some kind of notification that a new version is available, this could be done using Sparkle so that updates could be handled automatically.

Growl integration would be cool as well!

One thing I'd like to see is some kind of notification that a new version is available

Since the 5.8 versions of BOINC this has been available in all versions of BOINC already. It will just wait 14 days before it is activated. It'll show a message in among your messages that a newer version of BOINC is available for download.

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While BOINC Manager is running, my MacBook Pro won't go to sleep. This is fine with me when it's plugged in, but when the computer is running on battery power BOINC suspends all tasks but the laptop still won't sleep.

Does anybody else see this behavior, and should I report it as a bug?

Mac users: What bothers you the most about BOINC Manager?

Not being able to select multiple projects/tasks/transfers on the lists? For example, to suspend multiple workunits with one click.
Some part of the manager not looking like the other Mac apps? (The new sortable-column lists look alien on any operating system!)
The user interface inconsistent with other Mac applications?

Or, what new feature would you like to see?

Maybe you'd like to control your whole BOINC farm from a single Mac, and you find BOINCView interesting, but useless because it's Windows-only?

How about notifying you of "finally completed that CPDN task" or "got LHC work" via Growl? (both examples being quite infrequent events!)

Post your complaints, pet peeves, and requests here. Even if they're crazy. Even if they seem a lot of work to get done. Be a nit picker.

Yes, there is a reason why I'm asking this, and why it's aimed at Mac users only. But I won't tell you the reason yet.

Hi,
I'd love to have a simple way to deactivate graphics from within the BOINC manager.

First and foremost, I'm glad to see this forum get started. I've been frustrated with the lack of Mac support for BOINC, and this will be a good place to share information on how to get BOINC for Mac back on track.

I've been a longtime BOINC contributor, but I've recently stopped using BOINC on my Mac because of flaky behavior. I would REALLY enjoy contributing to the project again if the problems are resolved.

Wishlist:

1. BOINC will not automatically suspend when the user is active. It starts out okay, but after a few hours (not sure of exact time), BOINC just ignores the fact that the user is working on the system, and CPU remains at 100% (working on a BOINC project). This only affects Leopard (worked correctly under Tiger). This is a fatal error in my book, and caused me to remove BOINC from my system.

2. Control entire BOINC farm from single manager instance would be fantastic. I've got three dual-core Macs currently spinning idly -- I'd love to put them to work by managing everything from one spot.

3. It would be great to see some kind of visual progress indicator on the launch icon, showing not only current run state, but also a sense of completion of task (perhaps a muted bar graph showing work completed for up to five select projects?

Thanks to the Mac development and support team at BOINC. I'm really excited to get the key issue resolved and to start contributing cycles to the project again.

I asked the developer about this, here are his answers:

1. BOINC will not automatically suspend when the user is active. It starts out okay, but after a few hours (not sure of exact time), BOINC just ignores the fact that the user is working on the system, and CPU remains at 100% (working on a BOINC project). This only affects Leopard (worked correctly under Tiger). This is a fatal error in my book, and caused me to remove BOINC from my system.

As far as I know, this works for most Mac users on Leopard. I'm not aware of any reported problems in this area, and it works correctly for me. Are you using a current version of BOINC?

2. Control entire BOINC farm from single manager instance would be fantastic. I've got three dual-core Macs currently spinning idly -- I'd love to put them to work by managing everything from one spot.

This can already be done by using the Select Computer option from the Manager's Advanced Menu. This is mentioned (but poorly explained) in http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/RpcAuth and http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/UnixClient

You must know the BOINC password for the remote machine from the remote computer's file "/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/gui_rpc_auth.cfg" and put the controlling computer's IP address in the remote computer's file "/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/remote_hosts.cfg".

3. It would be great to see some kind of visual progress indicator on the launch icon, showing not only current run state, but also a sense of completion of task (perhaps a muted bar graph showing work completed for up to five select projects?

A better notification system for the Mac Manager is definitely on our list of planned enhancements. We probably won't use Growl notification, because it requires that users install third-party software. We plan to implement a similar style of notification directly in the BOINC Manager.

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1. I would like a way to hide the BOINCManager in the dock and an option for the tray. This is very important for us system admins who wish to deploy BOINC to many, many machines and don't want users clicking things. (Don't tell me service...)

2. Growl notifications would be interesting as well. I like that idea.

I already posted this somewhere else and I was told it was a great idea...

Why you don't implement an option to choose the number of processors to be used when the Mac is idle and when it's busy? I'm running a Mac Pro with 8 2.8 GHz cores, right now I always dedicate 2 cores to Boinc but it would be great if, apart from the memory use (which is useless), user could decide the computing burden for such situations. Just my company with 13 users could increase the output of 20%.

P.S. I tried a 6.x something, instead of choosing the number of cores now there's a %... Which is absurd, is it more intuitive the number of cores or a percentage?

I already posted this somewhere else and I was told it was a great idea...

it has been requested a couple of times for BOINC general. Perhaps that it'll be added in a future client.

P.S. I tried a 6.x something, instead of choosing the number of cores now there's a %... Which is absurd, is it more intuitive the number of cores or a percentage?

The original "use at most N processors" setting had a maximum of 16 processors. With the amount of multi cores on can use in a system on the rise, it was decided to change the option to a percentage of CPUs you can use.

Don't look at me, I didn't do it. ;-)

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The whole "won't suspend while user is active" problem affects me as well. I have under Advanced -> Preferences... told it to NOT run while the computer is in use (unchecked that box) and then under Activity I set it to "Run based on preferences" with no success. It just will not suspend while I'm active. And it's a pain - menus draw slower, Spotlight is terribly lethargic, it's just not a responsive computer unless I manually suspend it. This is on 5.10.45 on Leopard using a Core2 Duo Mac Mini 1.83GHz with 2GB of memory.

This is on 5.10.45 on Leopard using a Core2 Duo Mac Mini 1.83GHz with 2GB of memory.

First try to update to 6.2.15 and see if it still does this. 5.10.45 is no longer being developed upon.

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OK I didn't realize there was an official version 6 client...thatfixed it, thanks

1. I would like a way to hide the BOINCManager in the dock and an option for the tray. This is very important for us system admins who wish to deploy BOINC to many, many machines and don't want users clicking things. (Don't tell me service...)

2. Growl notifications would be interesting as well. I like that idea.

Yeah, would definitely like the ability to hide . Additionally the icon in the menu is full colour and sticks out like a sore thumb; it could really do with being a silhouette as is the standard.

See my post elsewhere to the BOINC Manager Forum:

The habit of cluttering the menubar with bitty icons when the full features of an application are available from the Mac OS X Dock is something borrowed from that, um, other operating system.

I really have no reason to use the BOINC menu when all of its features are available from the a click-hold on the BOINC Manager (6.2.18) icon in the Dock -- where, in fact, they should be made available according to standard Mac OS practices. The GUI of the Mac version of BOINC Manager could use a lot of polish, but I strongly suggest that one of the priorities for this should be to give users of the Mac Manager the option to show or hide the menubar icon.

See my post elsewhere to the BOINC Manager Forum:

That would be here, just to avoid having to search for it.

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

I work at western michigan university and we were considering installing the application in all the labs since there not all being used, all the time. That is about 300+ macs.

Our concern is that
A) the dock application, we don't want that to be available.
B) I don't want the icon to be colored and to stick out in the menu bar.
C) The application is not very well polished, more mac like.
D) a network manager so we could see all the computers across the labs.
E) The ability to lock the application so that students can't edit it, or turn it off.
F) a throttling ability, so that we can set it to run faster when idle and slower when being used.

A) the dock application, we don't want that to be available.
B) I don't want the icon to be colored and to stick out in the menu bar.
C) The application is not very well polished, more mac like.

It's technically possible to run the core client only, without the manager, so that there is no GUI at all. That solves all three problems: no "dock application", no menu bar icon, and nothing visible left that you can call "not well polished" :)

D) a network manager so we could see all the computers across the labs.

The best (or should I say "least bad") network manager I know runs on Windows only. Although you can of course control remote Mac clients with it.

E) The ability to lock the application so that students can't edit it, or turn it off.

The BOINC client runs on a separate user account (but not visible on the user list...), so users can't directly edit its files. The system used by BOINC to be controlled by the (local or remote) GUI is also password-protected. The password is in plain text among BOINC files, but the file won't be readable from students' user accounts.

F) a throttling ability, so that we can set it to run faster when idle and slower when being used.

There is throttling support, but I don't use it, so I don't remember if you can set different settings for idle vs in use.

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I asked the developer about it, he emailed me back with the following:

Charlie Fenton wrote:

- Install the Manager (Standard GUI) only on the administrator's computers. They can use the Select Computer feature in BOINC's Advanced menu to monitor and control the BOINC Client on each lab computer.

- On the lab computers, install the UNIX command-line version from the Download all page. Create the directory "/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/" and copy the files and folders into it from the "move_to_boinc_dir" directory you downloaded. Then run the Mac_SA_Secure.sh script (included with the download).

- Set the lab computers to run the BOINC client automatically on system startup:
Download the Make_BOINC_Service.sh script from this page in the Wiki, then run it as follows:

[path]/Make_BOINC_Service.sh "/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/"

- When attaching to projects, make sure that the global preferences are set to run only when the computer has been idle for several minutes. (I believe this is usually the default.)

- In addition to controlling the clients remotely using the BOINC Manager on the administrator's computer, you can use the boinccmd command line tool on each machine, as described in the Boinc command line tool.

Cheers,
--Charlie

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How about more apps written for linux-powerpc? Currently there are only three that I know of (SETI, SIMAP, SuperLink).

Sorry, I'm not a real Mac user. I just have 2 PowerMacs running Linux :)

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