A .torrent file, or a magnet link, opens in Desktop Minder as a folder: a list of the files it will bring you, each with a check box, a progress bar and a state. One button does the rest. It reads Download until you press it, Pause while the files are arriving, and Accept Downloads when they are all here, which turns the folder into an ordinary folder of the files you wanted. You choose how many files arrive at once, files can be renamed while they are still arriving, and a graph shows how fast it is going. It is meant for the occasional download, not for running a swarm; people who live in torrents will want a tool made for that.

Getting Started

A Torrent File

A .torrent file is a small recipe that says what a download holds and where to find it. Click a link to one on a web page and the file lands in your Downloads folder. Put it wherever you want the download to go, and double-click it: it opens in the View as a list of its files, all at nothing, with a Download button. Nothing is fetched until you press that.

A Magnet Link

A magnet link is the same recipe without the file: just an address starting with magnet:. When you click one on a web page, Desktop Minder doesn't start anything and doesn't hand it to some other program. It keeps the link as a small shortcut (an .url file, named for the download when the link names it) in your Downloads folder, with a magnet for its picture, so you can put it where you want it, as with a .torrent. Opening the shortcut opens the list of files, as a .torrent does. A magnet link doesn't say what is in it, so the list reads "Finding out what is in it..." while Desktop Minder asks the people sharing it; Download is gray until the answer comes, and its tip says why. A page that opens a pop-up window by itself doesn't get one: pop-ups a page opens without your clicking are dropped.

The List

The list looks like a folder in List Details: Name, Size, Progress (a bar), State, Speed and ETA. The line at the foot sums it up: how many files, how much of the whole has arrived, the speeds, and how long it expects to take.

• Check boxes. Every file starts checked. Clear a file's box and it is not fetched, and its State shows a dash. You can check it again later.
• State says what each file is doing: Downloading, Waiting (asked for, but nothing is coming yet) or Waiting for peers (nobody sharing has it), Paused, Checking what is already on the disk, or Done. A finished file shows a thumbs-up where its ETA was.
• The picture. A folder with files still to arrive wears a down-arrow badge. When they are all here it wears a magnet until you accept the downloads.

The Download Button

There is one button on the torrent's bar, and its label is what you can do next.

• Download makes a folder beside the .torrent or the shortcut, named for the download, puts the recipe inside it, and starts fetching the files you left checked. The View then becomes that folder, listing the same files as they arrive. Press it again to fetch whatever is still missing after a pause. It is also on the right-click menu of a torrent, a magnet link or a download folder.
• Pause stops it for now; see Pausing. The button changes back to Download.
• Accept Downloads appears when every file you left checked is here; see Accept Downloads.

If every file is unchecked, there is nothing to fetch, and the button is gray with the reason in its tip. Check one to bring it back.

Files at Once

Next to the button is Files at once, a box for how many files are fetched at the same moment, 3 to begin with. Put in 0 and they are all fetched together. The rest wait their turn, earlier files in the list first. Each download keeps its own number once it is made, so you can fetch a season's episodes one at a time, or all at once, and change your mind while it goes: a new number takes effect at once.

What counts is files that are really arriving. A file that has been asked for but is only Waiting doesn't hold a place, so another is started in its place; with a season of files and a few sources, that keeps the download from stalling behind files that nobody is sending. If the waiting ones wake up and there are then too many, the later files in the list step aside, keeping everything they have, so the earlier episodes finish first. There is a limit to how many files are asked for in all, so that a torrent of three hundred files nobody has doesn't become three hundred requests. The number for a new download is also on the Settings sheet, below.

Renaming While It Downloads

A file can be renamed while it is still arriving. Select its row and press F2, or right-click and choose Rename, and type the new name; it goes on arriving under the new name. The torrent's folder can be renamed too, from the list of all torrents (below), and it goes on downloading under its new name. A rename takes a moment to finish; if you try to accept the downloads before it has, you are asked to try again in a moment. Before you have pressed Download there is no folder yet, so there is nothing to rename.

The Speed Graph

Under the bar, over the list, is a graph of how fast the download has been going: one line for what is coming in and one for what is going out, the newest at the right. It shows the last five minutes to begin with and follows along as time passes. Hold Ctrl and turn the wheel to zoom about the pointer, hold Shift and turn it to slide back in time, or drag the bracket above the graph, as in the audio editor: its ends zoom and its body slides. Let the graph catch up with the right-hand end and it follows the live figures again. Rest the pointer on it for the figures at that moment. Gaps are drawn as nothing arriving, when Desktop Minder wasn't running or the torrent was stopped.

Pausing

Pause is a gentle stop. The connections to the people you are downloading from stay open, so what is already on its way still arrives and is kept, but nothing new is asked for and nothing is sent. A little may still arrive, or go out, for a moment after you press it. A download you paused stays paused when Desktop Minder is closed and opened again; press Download to carry on. Closing Desktop Minder stops everything; whether the downloads you didn't pause start again by themselves at the next start is one of the Settings below.

Accept Downloads

A finished download is still a torrent: Desktop Minder keeps its recipe and some notes in the folder, and goes on sharing the files for as long as Settings says. Accept Downloads is how you say you've got what you wanted. It lets go of the folder and stops sharing, then deletes the files you left unchecked, for good, without asking (you said you didn't want them), deletes the .torrent (or the magnet shortcut) the folder was made from, and removes the notes. What is left is an ordinary folder of the files you wanted. You can accept while it is still sharing; sharing ends then. The button is there only when every file you left checked is whole, and it checks the disk again before it deletes anything.

All the Downloads

The Torrents button at the right of a torrent's bar, and the one on the Downloads pane's bar, open a View of every download at once: a row for each, with its files, size, progress, state, speed and ETA added up, and the speed of all of them together drawn above the list. Double-click a row to go into that torrent. The bar's button, Download or Pause, acts on all of them; a row's right-click menu acts on that one, and also offers Open Folder, Rename and Remove from the List, which takes a download off the list and out of the engine and leaves its folder and files where they are.

Settings > Downloads

The Downloads section of the Desktop Minder Settings page holds the choices that belong to downloading. A change takes effect at once, on downloads already under way.

• Receive at most and Send at most, in kilobytes a second, for the program as a whole. 0 means no limit, which is what it starts as.
• Port, the one other people's programs connect to, 6881 to begin with. The first time something downloads, Windows Firewall asks whether Desktop Minder may use it. Say yes, or others can't connect to you and downloads are slower. A line under it says whether your router opened the port, as the router answered.
• Share finished downloads, which is how long to go on sending a finished download to others: Until I have sent a number of times what I downloaded (1.0 to begin with), For a number of hours after it finished (24), As long as Desktop Minder is running, or Not at all, which downloads only and sends nothing. The State of a finished download reads Sharing, then Shared when that is met; with sharing off it reads Done.
• Keep sharing finished downloads after a restart, off to begin with: when it is off, a finished download that has not finished sharing does not pick sharing up again after Desktop Minder is restarted.
• Resume unfinished downloads when Desktop Minder starts, off to begin with: otherwise they stay as they were until you choose Download.
• Find peers through the DHT and peer exchange, Prefer encrypted connections and Ask the router to open the port, each on to begin with.
• Files at once, the number a new download starts with.
• Download only through, the connection the downloading may use; see below.

A torrent is shared while it downloads: that is how the protocol works, and why Pause and Not at all exist. What you download is your own responsibility.

Only Through Your VPN

If you want your torrents to go through a VPN, choose its connection in Download only through. The list holds Any connection, which is what it starts as, and the connections your computer has, the ones that look like a VPN first. A line beneath says whether the one you chose is up now.

With a connection chosen, torrents download only while it is up. If you press Download while it is down, nothing starts, and the message says so: "Held: name is not connected. Connect it, then choose Download." If it goes down while downloads are running, they are stopped at once, the strip says "Torrents stopped", and their State reads "Waiting for name". When it is back they start again by themselves, and the strip says "Torrents resumed." A magnet link isn't looked up while it is down, and nothing starts when Desktop Minder starts. A download you paused yourself stays paused. Other programs aren't affected.

It can tell a connection is up, not that it is carrying traffic, so a VPN that is connected but not working is not noticed. It also can't tell that a VPN has been set to leave Desktop Minder out of its tunnel.

Not Yet

• A hard stop. Pause keeps the connections open, so a little more can arrive or go out after it.
• Binding the downloading to one connection, so that it can never use another. For now, Download only through is a rule about when it may run.
• Turning an ordinary folder into a torrent to share it.
• Anything for people who run many torrents or seed for a living: there are no queues, labels or schedules.