Ringlight 1.2, Mirrors, and Groups

May 7 2008, 3:39pm

Today I released v1.2 of the Ringlight client on all platforms. This release has a number of small changes which polish existing features (such as a better icon on Mac) and bring the full feature set to all platforms (such as video thumbnail generation on Linux). There is also preliminary support for an exciting new feature which is currently in alpha on the site: mirroring.One of the first things most people say to me when I tell them about Ringlight is, "So I have to leave my computer on all the time in order to share files?" At first I thought what a silly question, that's how file-sharing software works. Then I realized, why should it work that way? If the users want it to work differently, we can just change the way file sharing works so that it is more awesome.The first step then is mirroring. If you have multiple computers, you can mirror any file on any number of those other computers. For instance, if you have a laptop and a server, mirror the files on your laptop on your server. Then they will be available when your laptop is asleep. This all happens with the check of a box. Check the box and the file is automatically mirrored. Uncheck the box and it's removed from the mirror. Check more boxes to add more mirrors. It couldn't be easier.However, what if you only have one computer and it's a laptop? No problem, because I've also added fan mirrors. Anyone that is a fan of your files can choose to mirror them as well. Then, when your computer is asleep, people can download the file from your fans.Okay, so what if you have no extra computers and no fans? Well, let's be reasonable, you have to store a copy of the file somewhere if you want it to be available when your computer is offline! And if you get a very cheap Ringlight Pro account then I will store your files on some high-availability servers for you.What do you think about this idea? I think it's very cool. It's still in alpha, so I can't show it to you just yet, but I'm working on it. You might notice that if you go to the file info page for a file that it lists how many mirrors the file has. Sometime soon I'll release the mirroring interface to beta and then you can set up mirrors!Another major change you might notice on the site is with groups. The group sharing and management interface has been redesigned based on feedback from the download party. It's still a work in progress, so let me know what you think about it and we can work together to make it awesome.