A Sneak Peek at What.cd’s Project Gazelle
Written by Ben Jones on March 11, 2008A few months back, project Gazelle was announced by What.cd, a new tracker suite for private BitTorrent sites. The first trials of it in Alpha have now started, and the big question is: How does it shape up?
When we reported on the new project back in November, some viewed it with skepticism. However, just over 3 months later, the test site is now up and running and the admins were kind enough to give me a tour of the new system. At first glance, it doesn’t seem all that difference from existing TBsource based sites, which will ease transition for site users.
Speed, however, has been greatly improved over older codes, as well as hardware impact. Its developers estimate that a site running Gazelle can handle approximately twice the number of users that an existing TBsource based site can, on the same machinery, meaning sites can either add more users, or reduce server costs. Contrary to earlier beliefs, a tracker will be offered with the project when it goes public, meaning that everything needed to create a site will be included in one easy package.
How easy is that package to use, though? For the user, it’s very easy. Many people have got used to uploading a torrent file, then having to re-download it before they can start seeding. It’s annoying, and often confuses first time uploaders. Now, if the private flag is applied when the torrent is made, no re-download is needed. It may be a little touch, but it’s one that helps.
Other small touches include tagging, by genre, or style, or whatever the site wants to allow. For films, it means the likes of ‘Rush Hour’ can be tagged ‘comedy’ and ‘action’, allowing easier navigation, and avoiding those questioning niggles of ‘is it more comedy, or more action’ that existing genre-based category systems cause. Having found the title you want, other versions of the same item, in differing formats can be found there too. Again, all this is customizable by the site admin.
Admin tools also seem easy to use, and manage, with less frustrations. Modifying the code to fit the particular needs of a site will also be relatively easy. That’s not to say it’s going to be for everyone. If you’re looking for a small site, then something along the lines of Diferior may be better.
As for downsides, well, it’s an alpha product at the moment, so there are still a lot of bugs to be worked out. Existing TBsource themes will not work with Gazelle, but i’m told they should be fairly easy to create for anyone with experience in making themes. However, it is a positive step moving tracker software forward. The torrent world has needed an easy to use replacement for the aging TBsource, and Gazelle seems like it will fit the bill. How it actually behaves in practice, and the experiences of those starting to deploy it from scratch, are something we will have to wait and see about. Yet, for only 4 months work, it is showing phenomenal potential.
Screenshots
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84 Responses
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it finally starts looking like something.. and something good that is.. nice work gazelle team ;)
2GET (sorry)
The current “design” of Gazelle is a simple, TBSource-ish theme. That’s only temporary though. Everything is completely CSS-driven and XHTML 1.0 transitional valid.
Meaning, themes could make the site look completely different, without changing a single HTML element. Much like http://www.csszengarden.com
brown love ?
Diferior can handle loads of traffic too ;) It has many inbuilt caching options and newest version even has experimental support for generating static HTML files.
All the best to Project Gazelle team, I support what you do and what you stand for. Cheers!
meh, music torrent site, meh
http://www.freethescene.net
Mmmmm.. gazelle…
Amazing, can’t wait to see this baby at work.
a dot as word-connector for tags, could the coders figure out how to properly implement such things, rofl?
and the rest looks like a usability-nightmare, urrrg.
If only the site wasn’t filled with mislabeled transcodes and massive amounts of hit and runners.
First thing I realized on the screenshots is, the author uses Opera. Good boy =D
Any chance on finding out how he got his Opera browser to look like that in the last screenshot?
The last screenshot was from whatman, not me, as obviously, he wasn’t going to give me admin access on his new project.
[quote comment="309247"]Any chance on finding out how he got his Opera browser to look like that in the last screenshot?[/quote]
Tools -> Appearance -> Windows Native
That will make Opera use your windows skin.
For the buttons, you can either download them or add them manually.
For that check go to your Opera folder -> skin -> standard_skin.zip -> buttons.
Note:
- Close Opera before applying any changes!
- You should create a backup of any modified files
- You might have to look for the folder/files in the application data folder, if you used per user settings.
- Good luck d:E
OnTopic:
‘a cd of all of evlis’s hits’ <— *cough* :x
[quote comment="309242"]If only the site wasn’t filled with mislabeled transcodes and massive amounts of hit and runners.[/quote]
sad but true
The last screenshot wasn’t using Windows, it was probabl Linux with KDE.
“How easy is that package to use, though? For the user, it’s very easy. Many people have got used to uploading a torrent file, then having to re-download it before they can start seeding. It’s annoying, and often confuses first time uploaders. Now, if the private flag is applied when the torrent is made, no re-download is needed. It may be a little touch, but it’s one that helps.”
thats on a lot of trackers…
hey, could anyone get me an invite for this site ? that would be great
murdoclu@gmail.com
[/quote[quote comment="309262"]The last screenshot wasn’t using Windows, it was probabl Linux with KDE.[/quote]
Not sure, with help of Stardocks alike, it’s possible to make Windows look just like that. Anyways it doesn’t matter, as it should work on KDE as well :x
Waffles is filled with normalized and burst mode EAC rips from noobs that tried to rip with EAC because of the immense upload pushing the admin set on the users in the early history of waffles.
[quote comment="309321"]Waffles is filled with normalized and burst mode EAC rips from noobs that tried to rip with EAC because of the immense upload pushing the admin set on the users in the early history of waffles.[/quote]
/me waves to the what.cd admin
[quote comment="309333"][quote comment="309321"]Waffles is filled with normalized and burst mode EAC rips from noobs that tried to rip with EAC because of the immense upload pushing the admin set on the users in the early history of waffles.[/quote]
/me waves to the what.cd admin[/quote]
/me waves to the worst artdirector in torrenttracker history over at waffles because he makes the most ugly cartoon bs waffles i have ever seen.
These flame posts are not made by What.CD staff.
Who gives a flyin fuck!!!
The site is invite only, most of us cant get in anyway FUK-EM
psssst, You want an invite to WAFFLES, try asking one of the admins. Message (or comment) on the YEMD myspace site (myspace.com/youreyesmydreams)
or BEAU at hxxp://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=2241
(who may trade one for a false ID)
-they’ll be only too glad to help :)
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