User Interface

Table Columns

Many tables in the interface (for example the Library views) have additional columns that are not visible by default. To add, remove and configure the table's columns right-click on one of the existing column headers and select 'Column Setup' to show the configuration dialog.

Date and Time Formats

There are various columns within the Library views that show dates and times, for example 'Date Added' and 'Date Completed'. By default BiglyBT uses a set of predefined formats to show these dates and selects an appropriate one based on the width of the column.

This behaviour can be over-ridden for all columns via Options->Interface->Tables: Custom Date Format and for specific columns by right-clicking on the column header and selecting the Date Format item.

Date and time formats use the Java data and time format conventions, see docs.oracle.com for reference.

The column-specific date format is capable of supporting multiple formats based on the age of the item. This is done by separating the formats with a ; and prefixing age related formats with > number unit (unit can be d, w, m or y to select day, week, month or year). An entry with no age prefix will be used as the default, if present, otherwise the table format applies. This is best explained with an example:

>3m yyyy; >4w MM/yy; dd/MM/yy

If the date is older than 3 months then only the year is shown, if older than 4 weeks (and less than 3 months) then month/year otherwise day/month/year.

Format Overrides

Custom formatting is available for some user interface components such as rate display.

To allow flexibility and extensibility the format overrides are specified using a series of lines of the form

<component name> : <format specification>

Component names currently defined are

title.rate    Rate format for the main Vuze window title (when enabled)
column.size   Column size formatting in library views

Format specifications define how the component's value is displayed. They are made up of a number of parameters separated by commas:

format_specification: <format_parameters> (, <format_parameters>)*
format_parameters: <format_parameter> (; <format_parameter>)*
format_parameter: 

    units=<unit> (&<unit>)+
        [;hide=(y|n)] [;short=(y|n)] [;rate=(y|n)]
    format=<format_pattern>
        [;round=(up|down|halfup|halfdown)]

format_pattern: see link below

unit: b|k|m|g|t

Format patters are described here: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/format/decimalFormat.html

For example, to change the rate display used for the main Vuze window (and hence task-bar information) to just use kilobytes, hide the rate unit and show two decimal places

title.rate: units=k;hide=y, format=0.00

To show column sizes in MB with 3 decimal places and rounded up

column.size: units=m, format=0.000;round=up

Searching

View Filters

The various filter boxes in BiglyBT can be switched into and out-of 'regular expression mode' with the use of CTRL+x

Swarm Discoveries

Swarm Discoveries has a 'discover by search' menu item and a 'search icon' in the header area that both result in a popup dialog to enter a search expression. This expression can consist of one or more components separated by spaces, results must match all of the components (i.e. the combination logic is 'and', not 'or') in any order. Each of these components can be one of the following:

• A basic string, for example bunny
• A basic string prefixed with a + - same as the above
• A basic string prefixed with a - - the string must NOT appear in the result
• A prefix of tag: - the following string is used for a tag search. For example tag:linux
• A regular expression contained in round brackets, for example (\d{1,3}) which means "1 to 3 consecutive digits"
• If the string includes | characters then it is compiled into a regular expression to obtain 'or' semantics. For example big|bunny matches against 'big' or 'bunny'

Remember not to include extra spaces in the expression unless you want to split it into multiple components!