FreeMeter dev blog

Hi everyone, in the meantime between today and the release of FreeMeter 2.0 (that I estimate for X-mas, since I don’t have that much time to spend on FM) I’d like to gather feedback and feature set for 2.0 and future versions. This is a list of things that I know for sure that I’ll be implementing:

1. Rewrite will be done in c# & .net framework 3.5 sp1 – many people ask me why is this so? The simplest answer is that I also want to have some features while I’m coding this thing :P A more reasonable arguments state that 3.5 sp1 gives me Linq, WPF and a faster and more secure framework.

2. I’ll totally redesign interface as for now it really, really sucks…

3. There will be massive change to alerts as for today these are too simple and in many situations that won’t do.

4. I will give you new tray icon graph that and a plugin based architecture so that new graphs for the tray and main window can be created.

5. I’m considering WPF in 2.0 but I’m not sure if I want that in 2.0 since I’m all new to WPF, but if not in 2.0 then 2.x I will move FM to WPF.

6. There will be finally weekly logs and alerts.

7. Customization of graphs colors.

8. Multilingual interface.

9. Enhanced utilities – ping, trace, mail, totals log.

10. Auto-update feature.

11. Totals log split to interfaces (not sure if this is possible but I’ll try).

12. Total-hiper-giga-full bug fixing.

13. Some real documentation and maybe tutorials.

14. A brand new website! :)

15. A helper info for those that can’t seem to get FM to work.

And the following features are based on requests from users that I’ve approved:

1. Multiple instances will be allowed.

2. Hiding while alt+tab is pressed.

3. Manipulation of the time scale (via resizing window + via settings).

4. Remembering selected interfaces between restarts.

5. Off-screen control (so window won’t go off screen).

6. Archive bandwidth graph with the data – on demand.

7. System startup integration

I think that this is it – if I missed anything or you want to comment on any of those – please do! I”m looking forward to your feedback!

This will be FreeMeter's new home... I'm very dissapointed in how sourceforge handles things so I'll be moving all development here. The repository @ sf is no longer up to date and there have been some issues with stealing FM code... So I'll have to address that... In the meanwhile I'm rewriting fm... It was so poorly written I couldn't manage it anymore... Adding a simple feature was like a horror...

A bit of history:

• 11.2005 - Pho released first version of FM
• 04.2006 - I've joined the project and CVS repository was created
• 07.2006 - FM's new site
• 11.2007 - last stable release of the 1.x branch, Pho stopped responding, FM code was stolen
• 05.2008 - I've started rewriting FM from scratch
• 07.2008 - FM's new home

For today the FM source code will not be publicly available until I resolve the stealing of FM code by third party ( code thefts here ). Also there is a problem with FM's name - it seems that around year 06' some company created a bandwith monitor with a same name: the other freemeter

About the name - I'll need to contact them and we should resolve this somehow, becouse this is very confusing for many users.