Hi, @ll. Here’s a description of the settings for DC++ and their usage.

First, the DC++ latest client is 0.691 however this (and other newer clients) will not connect to older versions (e.g. 0.401 or lower), which effectively forces some hubsters to upgrade to enable connection to users that are already on the latest versions.  A compromise is to change to 0.674.  This client will connect to any and all versions.   Get the DCplusplus-0.674.exe from this site:  http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dcplusplus/?download   Then select the mirror site closest to you after you click on DCPlusPlus0.674.exe filename.  (NB if Australia one doesn't work sometimes then use the Japan mirror).

When downloaded, open and install it.

The illustrations are taken from DC++ version 0.305 but are equally valid for any version of the software. The main differences are in the number of options listed under “Advanced” and the addition of two buttons under “Appearance”.

Note that the settings used here are mine and that they’re optimised for use on a non-networked computer running on an ADSL connection. I run behind a firewall (Zone Alarm Pro v.4) in Active mode. These settings have run 24/7 (with few exceptions) without a problem for over a year on my system.

When you first open the “Settings” dialogue in 0.305 it automatically opens on the “General” portion of the dialogue and looks like this:

The “General” dialogue tab

In versions previous to 0.301, the list on the left side of the above illustration is, instead, shown as a series of “tabs” running across the top of the main dialogue. The information each tab contains is the same.

The first field should contain your default Nick. This can also be set individually for each hub you’re in. The individual setting is done in “Favorite Hubs”. If you leave the “Nick” field in the individual hub dialogues in “Favorite Hubs” blank, this is the Nick that will be used for that hub.

Filling in the “E-Mail” field is strictly optional. If you do fill it in, the address you enter will be shown at the far right of your entry in the User list of each hub you’re in.

The “Description” field is also optional but should be filled in. It’s actually supposed to contain a short description of what your share is like but is often used for other things.

The bottom section is the one that causes the most problems for people. They have the idea that all of the fields must be filled in. This is not the case.

As you can see above, none of the fields are filled in on my system. It may be necessary to fill them in if you’re using a router or running a simple network but, since I’ve never run either, I can’t help you there. I would, in this case, refer you to the DC++ FAQ which can be accessed directly from the {Help} menu.

The most critical setting in here is the selection of “Mode”. There are only two choices. “Active” mode is, by far, the most preferable. This will allow you to connect to any other computer in any hub. “Passive” mode should only be selected if you are having trouble with your firewall. The disadvantage of this mode is that it will not allow you to connect to other users who are also in Passive mode.

You can set the IP number if you have a Static IP number but it’s not really necessary. If you have a Dynamic IP number (changes every time you log on to your connection), it’s meaningless to write anything in here.

The Port number can be set (locked) but this may cause you problems if a user you’re tying to connect to happens to have that, particular, port blocked in their firewall. This has happened to me on a couple of occasions. If the field is left blank, DC++ will simply use a random port. If it gets blocked on one port, it then tries another.

The Downloads Tab

The next portion of the dialogue deals with where things will be stored on your computer and the number of downloads you will permit at any one time.

The “Downloads” Tab

The first two fields show where downloaded files are to be stored. I strongly recommend the use of a dedicated partition for this as you will be moving files in and out of this folder constantly as you download, edit and share them. This leads to massive fragmentation of the partition used. If you have this located on your system (usually C:/) partition, it will slow your entire system down over time.

Although I don’t use it, you can set specific directories/folders for files that are in the process of being downloaded and those that are finished. If you set both, files will be downloaded to the “Unfinished downloads directory” and transferred to the “Default download directory” when finished.

The two little boxes in the middle should, usually, be set to “0”. 56k modem users may want to set the top one to “1” or “2” to conserve bandwidth so that others can download from them without problems even when the computer is left without supervision.

Although I have a long list of Public Hubs List URL’s, I never use them. Most of them, including the official DirectConnect list, have a tendency to be unreachable. In addition, I strongly recommend that you stay out of Public Hubs. There are hubs with up to 2,000 users and that may sound appealing for download purposes (it’s impossible to conduct any meaningful chat in them) but you can never tell who’s in them. These are the hubs where agents of the RIAA, MPAA, Business Software Alliance, et al. are most likely to go looking for users to prosecute. All they have to do is download your list and then get an album from you and they have all the evidence they need. The next thing you know you either get shut down by your ISP or you get a letter from a lawyer. DC++ has, as yet, not been targeted for these campaigns but it’s only a matter of time. Stick to private hubs where you can get to know people.

The Sharing Tab

This is where you indicate which folders you want to share with people and how many people at a time can, by default, download your files.

The “Sharing” Tab

Let’s look at the bottom of the dialogue, first. Only two things to be set here.

The first should be set to “0”. I’ve never actually found any use for it. This is especially true of version 0.305 where an option has been added allowing you to “Auto-grant” slots to specific users. It’s original purpose was to allow users with very slow connections to connect to you automatically.

The box on the bottom indicates the default number of slots you want to open. This number will vary greatly depending on the speed of your connection, the number of hubs you’re in, etc. My practice is to set it two slots lower than my maximum capacity. This leaves me enough bandwidth to grant extra slots to those I choose. On a good day, I can increase the number of default slots to 6 and still leave myself the extra slot leeway. These extra slots can be granted in two (well, three) ways. You can right-click on the Nick of the user you wish to grant a slot to in either the hub User list or in your UL/DL window (at the bottom of the screen) or, when in a pm window with the individual, by typing in /grant in the pm. Thie latter must be the only thing in the line you type. Experience seems to indicate that the latter method is more reliable than the two former methods. You can also tell the other party to Force connection. This will add to the probability of success.

The top half of the dialogue is where you actually point to the folders you want to share. This is a simple enough process.

First of all, though, I want to point out a very important setting. Why it can be set at all is a complete mystery to me. Below the large window is a little box labeled “Share hidden files”. This should never be ticked!!! If you tick it and then share an entire partition, it gives other users (e.g. hackers) information that can allow them to access parts of your computer such as the Operating System. This is absolutely not something you want to do. It would be different if you could specify which other users could have such access. You can’t!

What not to share…

There are several types of files that should never be shared. You should never share system files, installed programs or partially downloaded files. Many hubs will automatically kick you if they discover that you’ve shared these types of files.

You would be surprised how many times I’ve opened a list and discovered that a user has shared their entire Windows/WINNT folder!! This is an open invitation to disaster!!! These folders can, and usually do, contain your passwords, address book and access permissions. If these were to fall into the wrong hands you would be leaving your computer wide open to hijacking.

Installed programs, with very few exceptions, are totally useless to others. They cannot be run on another machine unless the one who has downloaded them has the know-how and patience to go into their registry and manually insert each, of possibly several hundred, key necessary for the program to run.

Partially downloaded files will only serve to irritate and aggravate those who may download them from you. This, in turn will give you a bad reputation. They may have trouble downloading them at all because they are constantly changing size or, if their connection is faster than yours, they may simply get partial files. Nobody likes a tune that suddenly cuts off in the middle.

Different hubs have different rules concerning what may or may not be shared. All hubs forbid the sharing of the above. Others will kick you for sharing different levels of pornographic material (you don’t really want to be in a hub where they allow kiddie-porn, so you?). Some go as far as forbidding certain words in filenames. I find the latter demand a bit ridiculous as there are often legitimate reasons for the words in question. I have files by black artists in my share whose title includes the word “nigger” or “f*ck”. Although the former is not a term I generally throw about, it has, at different times been cosidered legitimate. However, it’s the owner’s hub, not yours, so you’ll have to watch out for the rules of particular hubs concerning these things.

Back to the top. Only two things you can do here. Add folders to your share by selecting, you guessed it, [Add folder]. This opens up a File Finder dialogue which you can use to navigate to the folder you want to add to your share. Unfortunately, this has to be done individually for each folder. You can’t select multiple folders in a single operation.

To remove a folder from share, simply select the folder in the list and click on [Remove].

You can pdate your file list by removing and then re-sharing a folder but this isn’t the most practical method. It’s better to write /refresh in either the main chat window or in a pm window.

The “Appearance” Tab

The “Appearance” Tab (top)

The very top of this dialogue allows you to make certain selections concerning the on-screen appearance of DC++ on your computer. You can select a background color for your windows (I recommend a light Beige or Cream Yellow to lessen glare and resulting eyestrain) and a color and size for the text you use. Which button does what should be apparent. The box in the middle shows you an example of what the settings you’ve chosen will actually look like.

The two buttons at the right of the illustration above exist only in versions 0.301 and above. They allow you to set the colors used for the upload and download progress bars at the bottom of your screen (if you chosen to use them at all). Select colors not because they’re pretty but because they don’t strain your eyes and make text easy to read. The default red color is not good for these purposes.

Below this group of buttons is a long list of check boxes controlling various options that deal with the program display. I’ll go through each one.  I’ve had to use two illustrations due to the length of the options list.

Full row select in lists: This simply controls whether an entire line or only the first item on a line in a list is highlighted when you click on it. Matter of taste.

Filter kick and NMDC debug messages: This controls whether administrative messages concerning people being kicked, banned, gagged, etc. are displayed in Main on your screen or not. I’ve never seen a debug message in DC++ so I assume that those are specific to NMDC (NeoModus Direct Connect, the original and very outdated client). Again, a matter of taste.

Minimize to tray: This controls where the program disappears to when you minimize it. Check it and it will show up as a DC++ icon in the system tray portion of the Task Bar (usually at the bottom of your scree). Leave it unchecked and the program will minimize to the center portion of the Task Bar.

Show timestamps in chat by default: This will cause your local time to be displayed at the beginning of each new message in both Main and pm’s. I find it very handy to have these when directing someone to a particular portion of an earlier conversation. Others may not.

Confirm application exit: Just what it sounds like. Check it and clicking on the “X” at the top right of the DC++ program window or selecting “Exit” from the {File} menu will open an alert box asking you whether you really want to shut it down.

The “Appearance” Tab (bottom)

View status messages in Main chat: Shows info about hub resets, disconnections, etc.

Show joins/parts in chat be default: Displays a message each time a user enters or leaves the hub.

Use system icons when browsing files (lows browsing down a bit): Determines whether a generic DC icon or the icons set for your own system are used for file display in file lists. The slowdown mentioned is only noticeable on loder systems.

Use OEM monospaced font for viewing text files: Determines whether a generic, non-adjustable OEM (Own Equipment Manufacture) font is used by the internal text viewer when displaying downloaded text files within DC++.

Set Finished Manager(s) tab bold when an entry is added: Changes the appearance of the text in the tabs at the bottom of the screen when anything is added to the contents of the window that the tab represents.

The “Logs and Sounds” Tab

Only two functions here. The first is what logs are to be kept and where they’re to be stored. The first text field specifies the “where”. Just use the [Browse…] button to pint DC++ to the right place.

I’ve never understood why the four following items are present as text fields. If you enter anything in them the resulting logs contain that text and nothing else. It may be that they’re intended for entering specific commands but I’m not sure. In any case, ticking the checkbox above each field results in logs of that specific type being saved to the folder you’ve specified.

These logs can be both practical and important. The upload and download logs will keep a permanent record of every file that’s been transferred to and from your system including the dateand time of the finished UL/DL, in which hub the transfer was made and who UL/DL:ed the files. Very handy if you discover that you’ve gotten a partial file and don’t remember where you got it from.

The other two items log all traffic in the Main chat window and in each pm window between you and other users. This can also be important if you need to be able to track what was said, where and when. The need does, sometimes, arise.

These last two log types are saves as *.log files where * stands for the hub or user name involved. They are, in fact, standard text files that can be opened and inspected in any text editor.

The two check boxes at the bottom are supposed to have the program sound an alert if pm’s are opened or continued while you happen to be away from the screen. This doesn’t work on all systems (it never has on mine, for example) but I know people for whom it does. The theory is that you create a folder labeled “Sounds” in your DC++ folder and put a wave file named “PrivateMessage.wav” in it. This can, apparently, be any *.wav file. I wouldn’t use too large a file, though. You don’t want to have to listen to a 3 minute tune every time a pm opens up.

The “Advanced” Tab

This tab contains numerous settings dealing with what is shown on your screen and how DC++ should handle different popups and other situations.

At the very top of the dialogue there are four small text boxes:

Rollback: This controls how far back within a partially downloaded file DC++ checks when download of that file is resumed. If the file is queued from multiple sources, there may be a mismatch and DC++ will refuse to resume the download. The number you write in here is up to you and may, in fact, be set to zero. The usual practice is to enter a figure which is a multiple of 256 but I don’t know if it has to be.

Write buffer size: Controls how much information is stored in the memory buffer before it’s written to your hard drive. I’m not quite sure if it relates only to downloaded files or if it also controls how often your logs are written to.

Client version: This is redundant in newer versions of DC++. Older versions displayed this information as part of your tag in the hub user list. Newer versions take the information directly from the program file and ignore this entry. For those using older versions, although DC++ versions are actually numbered 0.261, 0.301, etc., it was recommended that they be entered as 1.261, 1.301, etc, for technical reasons.

Max tab rows: Simply controls the number of rows of tabs that you can display at the bottom of the main DC++ screen. The number of rows desirable has to do with the size and resolution of your monitor and the number of hubs, pm’s, file lists, etc. that you think you might have open at any given time. I’ve never had need of more than 1 row but have this set to 2 just in case.

The “Advanced” Tab (top)

Auto-away on minimize (and back on restore): If this is selected, the program automatically puts you in “Away” mode whenever you minimize the DC++ client and marks you as “Back” when you restore the client to it’s full size. You can also enter “Away” mode leaving the client at its normal size by typing /away in Main. You can mark yourself as back by entering /back.

Automatically follow redirects: With this selected, you will automatically be transfered to a new location at the command of the owner of the hub you’re in. This is often done in the case of hubs re-booting or being taken offline for maintenance.

Clear search box after each search: The purpose of this seems to be clear and refers, as far as I can tell to the Hub search function. I’ve never been able to get it to actually do anything.

Open the public hubs window at startup: Does exactly what it says but I don’t know why anybody would want to do it.

Open the download queue window at startup: Again, this does exactly what it says. I find it very practical as it allows you to see exactly what remains to be downloaded.

Open the favorite hubs window at startup: Again, self-descriptive. You would usually have your regular hubs set to start up automatically so I see no point in having this open every time you re-boot the client.

Open the finished downloads window at startup: It can be of use to check this list, at times, but it certainly doesn’t seem necessary to make it one of the first things you see. The list gets emptied when the client is rebooted, anyway. This means that it would always come up blank.

Automatically search for alternate download locations: This is one of those critical settings. Although it may, at first glance, appear to be a desirable function to have running permanently in the background, it does lead to some problems. What it actually does is run a continuous search for matches to every single file in your download queue.

The files that get matched and added to your queue may not, in fact, be the same as the file you were looking for. It matches your queue with any file of the same name. The file may not, however, be at the same bitrate or may, of course, be damaged. That, however, is your own problem.

Worse is the fact that using it constantly slows down the entire hub!! This is most often noticed in the form of excessive lag but can, in some cases, cause the hub to crash if too may users have the function turned on at the same time since the search process, unlike the download process, goes through the hub software.

The time to use this, in my opinion, is when you’ve queued files from a user that then disappears, perhaps for good. Or, when you’re having problems with a user who constantly moves  their files around or removes them. At that point, you turn the function on for 30-40 minutes and hope to find alternate sources. After that amount of time, or when the files you’re looking for have been found, turn the function off.

Use default search strings in auto search when no string is specified: To be honest, I have no idea what this means. I’ve never found any way of entering a default search string.

Popup private messages: There are two ways of receiving a pm from another user. Selecting this option makes them appear in a popup window. If this isn’t selected, the message will appear in the Main chat window but will be visible only to the intended recipient.

Ignore messages from users that are not online (effective against bots): Blocks receipt of mass messages sent by users that are not online in the hub(s) you are. Like it says. This is effective against some bots.

Popup messages from users that are not online (if not ignoring, messages go to main chat if enabled: A variant of the preceding setting. Accepts the mass messages but moves them to Main chat rather than putting them in a popup window.

Remove dupes completely from your share (otherwise, only their size is subtracted but the files can be seen by others: This can be a tricky choice. It happens that, for one reason or another, you may wish to have duplicate files or albums. If you select this, only the first occurrence of the files will appear in your file list. If you have each album in a separate folder and have more than one copy (if, for instance, an album has two major artists on it so that you have a copy in each artist’s folder) the one folder will appear to be empty. This can get you kicked or banned from some hubs.

The total file sizes of any duplicates is subtracted from the total size of your share whether this option is selected or not.

Install URL handler on startup (to handle dchub:// links): Selecting this option activated Internet links posted in the Main chat area, allowing you to simply double-click on them to open your Internet browser directly on the address indicated.

Use small send buffer (enable if uploads slow downloads a lot): This attempts to equalise the bandwidth used for up and downloads. Can be helpful.

Advanced Tab (bottom)

Don’t delete file lists when exiting: This preserves any file lists that you may have downloaded. Otherwise, they are deleted from your hard drive when you exit the DC++ client. I find it a good idea to use this option. It allows you to queue all but the newest items without first having to re-download a user’s file list or to queue things while the user is offline. It’s also a good idea to go through the Files lists folder, located in the same directory as your DC++ program, and  get rid of lists belonging to users that are no longer online or have gone on to other hubs.

Show progress bars for transfers (uses some CPU): This is more a matter of taste than anything else. It has to do with the display at the bottom of the main DC++ window. Transfer information can be displayed as either plain text or with coloured progress bars. Using the progress bars does take a little bit of time from your CPU but the amount is negligible. The colours used for eventual progress bars can be customised in the “Appearance” tab.

Enable automatic SFV checking: SFV (Simple File Verification) files are intended to ensure that the files you download actually match the originals. Not everybody uses them but, if present, the SFV file will not allow you to download an alternate version of a file unless it has the same size and Checksum as the one in the SFV file. This means that you won’t, for instance, be able to DL an alternate file at a different bitrate to the same directory as the originally queued file.

Automatically refresh share list every hour: Does just what it sounds like. Can be a good idea, all of us do forget to refresh sometimes. Just as during a manual file list refresh, this stops graphical activity in DC++. How long the acitivity is interrupted depends on the size of your share. Up and downloads are not affected.

Use antifragmentation method for downloads: This is a very good function to use. It reserves hard drive space equal to the entire size of a file when download begins. This prevents the file from getting spread all over your hard drive and reduces total fragmentation of the drive.

Don’t send the away message to bots: Simply means that when an automatic hub bot throws a message up on your screen, your system won’t reply to it which might cause it to send back a further message.

Skip zero-byte files: Certain files (usually system files) report a size of 0 bytes. These are not, usually, files you want to have on your system. That’s one reason why it’s a good idea to exclude hidden files from your share on the “Sharing” tab.

Break on first ADLSearch match: I’m not quite sure what this one actually does. My ADLSearch function lists all matches whether this is turned on or not.

Tab completion of nicks in chat: No idea.

Enable safe and compressed transfers: This is a new feature. If both users are using one of the latest versions of DC++, transfers between the two systems are both safer and somewhat faster.

Accept custom user commands from the hub: This allows the use of macros created by other users or by the hub owner or Op:s. Most are safe but you never really know what some ill-intentioned user will come up with. I use it anyway.

Automatically match queue for auto search hits: Although this might seem like a good idea, keep in mind that it will slow down the autosearch function and that you might end up DL:ing a set of files from ten different people.