TipsAndTricks

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General Tips

Power Mode: Are you a power user who likes to get the most out of their software or are you a Shareaza user that wants to see a little more? If so, you may want to try out Power Mode. Power Mode enables you to view many more things and makes the interface much more powerful. To try power mode go into View > Power Mode. You may change back at any time by going into View > Normal Mode.

Selecting Multiple Items: Shareaza features the standard use of the CTRL and SHIFT keys to select multiple items in a list. For example, if you want to select multiple sources to delete them, you could click on one and then, holding the SHIFT key down, use the up and down arrows to select a group of them. You can also use the SHIFT key to select multiple items by clicking at the start of a group, holding SHIFT and click at the end of a group. All the sources in between will be selected. An exception to this is on the search window where shift will act like the CTRL key.

The CTRL key allows you to select multiple items one by one. Hold down the CTRL key and click on the items you want to highlight. You can click on a highlighted item, while still holding the CTRL key, to unselect that item.

Note that as of current Shareaza 2.1 alphas, this functionality is broken in the seach window. Both Ctrl and Shift behave in the fashion Ctrl is supposed to.

On the downloads window you can use the CTRL+A combination. This will select all the items of a certain type, based on whatever is currently selected. For example, if you have selected a source for a particular download, pressing CTRL+A will select all sources for that download. Likewise, if you have selected a download on the list and press CTRL+A, all files on your download list will be selected. You can also select combinations of items, i.e. selecting a file and sources for a particular file will select all files and all sources for the file you currently have a selected source for. The file selection trick also works for sources selected for more than one file.

Download Tips

Optimizing Your Download: Learn how to optimize your download speed.

Download groups: If you are in the power mode, Shareaza features a new useful functionality. It will allow you to choose file extensions so that downloading files are automatically categorized, and you can even choose the folder where they would go once downloaded. You can also move files among these groups by manually dragging and dropping them, so you can take a file, and drop it over the group where you want it to go.

Change the BitTorrent tracker: Shareaza allows to change the tracker URL that is managing your current BitTorrent transfer. To do this you can right click on the file you are downloading, and go to Advanced > Torrent Info... in the dialog that appears you will be pressented with some information about the transfer, including the URL for the tracker, there you can change it. However, be careful, this can mess up your torrent download, if the new tracker chosen does not have the file, the file will not continue to download. In this case you should switch back to your previous tracker.

Download Percentage: To see how much of a file you have downloaded, Shareaza includes an option to see the total amount downloaded, right there in the progress bar. This option is disabled by default. To turn it on, go into the Advanced Section of the Shareaza Settings, find "Downloads.ShowPercent" and highlight it. Change the value to "1". Press OK. You should now see a green bar near the top of the progress bar that shows the total amount downloaded, much like eMule.

Note that as of Shareaza 2.1 alphas and later, there are two hidden columns: "Complete" and "Downloaded" in the Download Window; the former shows the percentage completed and the latter the amount downloaded. These columns are to the right of the default columns, try resizing the last column to find them.

Searching

Cleaning up search results: Sometimes when you perform a search, you get back search results that are not useful. These can be hidden by selecting them (or a group of them), and pressing the delete key. You can also use the 'filter' box in the bottom right of the search window to filter files based on certain text in the filenames. Clicking the 'More...' button shows a box that allows even greater functionality for filtering.

Search Tips: Useful tips to take full advantage of Shareaza's searching capabilities, as well as configuring your client to maximize your results.

Security

Learn How to Avoid Catching a Virus:

See AvoidingMalware.

Library

Sometimes you may want to filter your library by keywords and have them saved. To do that, perform regular searches in Organizer and rename the Search folder differently. The next time you perform the search a new search folder will be created, and your old search will be saved.

How to provide thumbnails for files in the Library

Shareaza can show to you and uploaders previews (thumbnails) of many Library file types. But this can be extended further by using 3-d party Windows shell extensions.

File type:

DJVU - "DjVu Shell Extension Pack" (32/64-bit)
PDF - "Adobe Reader" (32/64-bit) and optional "Adobe preview handler fix tool" (64-bit)

Misc

Upgrading: Did you know that you can close the Set up Wizard at any time by just clicking the X? This is useful if you are upgrading to a new version of Shareaza, or just reinstalling it, and don't want to lose your settings (like port, connection speed, etc.)

Gwebcache, host, and .met file links: Shareaza supports the use of shareaza:gwc:URL to add gwebcaches, URL is replaced with the address of the Gwebcache. You can also use the links shareaza:meturl:URL to add new server.met file services. Also the links gnutella:host:address (address is an url, or an ip address) will open a dialog box that asks to either connect to that host, or to browse that user. These links are used in the same way as magnets.

Shareaza's Security Features: You can easily block IP addresses of unwanted hosts using Shareaza's security window. Press F7 to access it and right click to view its options. Read the Security Filter page for links to security filter lists. It bans these users from ever communicating with your client. Also, a good site to go for security is bluetack.co.uk. It can convert many blocklists, such as the Shareaza Security Update from their format to Shareaza format instantly.

Put all the toolbars on one row: If you're an advanced user and want to save vertical space but still have all of Shareaza's toolbars available then the Menubar can be shrunk to allow the other bars to be added on the same row as it.

File:Unstretched menu.png

To achieve this two registry keys need to be added to HKCU\Software\Shareaza\Shareaza:

DWORD, MenuStretch = 0
DWORD, MenuHalfHeight = 0

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