SABnzbd Forums

Triggerhappy wrote:First off...great app...my wife can now "request" movies and has been set up on boxcar with her iPhone to get notified when they're ready for viewing...

One problem that i can't wrap my head around...I seem to have an odd problem with the add movie functionality...namely that I can connect to CouchPotato fine, but when I go to add a flick to it, select the movie and hit the quality, it just sits there spinning. Eventually it gives me an error that it can't connect to the CouchPotato server, but when I reconnect to the server the movie is already either in the Wanted list, or already actually Snatched.

Any ideas?

I have the same problem, must be a bug?

Sounds like it would be a great app. Would get it but I dont use SickBeard anymore

I use NzbDrone instead. It would be awesome if both sickbeard and nzbdrone were supported then the user could choose which you want the app to use depending on what one you have installed on your pc.

I just purchased the app and it looks quite good. I have one request. When I edit the servers, please give me the option to delete a server. I run 2 instances of SABnzbd in 2 servers. In one of the servers I run Sickbeard & the other has CouchPotato. By mistake I ended up creating 4 servers but I was unable to delete them and I had to blow away and reinstall the app.

Will we ever see the "friendly server name" option I asked for? I have 2 servers, both under the same ip address, and it's hard to tell them apart in Qouch. Also, what about being able to pause Sab for <x> minutes?

Also, in the new update, what does "Show index in lists" do?

Index puts your wanted films etc in Alphabetical order.

Gkf9 wrote:

Triggerhappy wrote:First off...great app...my wife can now "request" movies and has been set up on boxcar with her iPhone to get notified when they're ready for viewing...

One problem that i can't wrap my head around...I seem to have an odd problem with the add movie functionality...namely that I can connect to CouchPotato fine, but when I go to add a flick to it, select the movie and hit the quality, it just sits there spinning. Eventually it gives me an error that it can't connect to the CouchPotato server, but when I reconnect to the server the movie is already either in the Wanted list, or already actually Snatched.

Any ideas?

I have the same problem, must be a bug?

Not really a bug in Qouch to be honest, but an unfortunate result of how the current version of CouchPotato works. It almost immediately adds the movie when I ask it to do so, but it takes a long time before CouchPotato answers back saying, 'Hey, I've added your movie!'. That's what's causing the errors. The new V2 version of CouchPotato works a lot better in that regard, and it will be supported in the next version of Qouch. So I'm sorry I can't help you with that right now.

ThaDraGun wrote:Sounds like it would be a great app. Would get it but I dont use SickBeard anymore

I use NzbDrone instead. It would be awesome if both sickbeard and nzbdrone were supported then the user could choose which you want the app to use depending on what one you have installed on your pc.

That one is new to me, so I'll look into it.

gers1978 wrote:Will we ever see the "friendly server name" option I asked for? I have 2 servers, both under the same ip address, and it's hard to tell them apart in Qouch. Also, what about being able to pause Sab for <x> minutes?

Also, in the new update, what does "Show index in lists" do?

Well, I'm working on a more user-friendly way to add servers and your request is part of that. It has always been, I just haven't had the time to implement it yet as there are still so many things that need to get implemented.

All your feedback is greatly appreciated, and although it may take some time before your requests are actually implemented, I'm really interested to hear them!

In lieu of a complete review, here's a couple of observations - all on the iPad and Qouch 1.3.0.

Qouch is a decent looking app and works like advertised. It relies heavily on standard iOS UI elements (as opposed to e.g. Instacast HD or Tweetbot which have a much more polished design). I get the feeling that the app was designed from a developer view and exposes the API:s from SABnzbd, Sick Bearch and Couch Potato rather than focusing on what the user wants to accomplish.

Take e.g. adding a TV episode. You need to:

1. select TV Series
2. select the show
3. select season
4. tap edit in the top right
5. tap the episode you want to download
6. a selection box shows wanted, skipped, archived, ignored (which is what the API exposes)
7. tap wanted (you never ever choose anything but wanted)
8. an unnecessary popup tells you the show has been changes to wanted, tap OK on that dialogue
9. the episode has been added to the backlog

When I'm using Qouch I want things to be simple. For complicated stuff I can always revert to the full web UI of Sick Beard. An alternative flow where focus is put on what the user tries to do rather than what the API exposes would be to e.g.:

1. go to TV Series
2. select show
3. select season
4. all episodes that are in "skipped" status have a small download button to the right (see e.g. how the AppStore app handles updates for inspiration). You could also have a search icon for already downloaded episodes if you want to re-download a higher quality like the Sick Beard web UI has today.
5. tap the episode you want to download
6. the episode has been added to the backlog

This would be a much more pleasant flow for me as a user.

I use Qouch (or want to use it) for the following main use cases:

Working well
- Add a new Movie
- Check upcoming TV episodes
- Pause/Resume SABNzbd download
- Check SABNzbd Queue

Possible, but could use some user interaction love
- Add a new TV Show
- Add an episode of a TV Show to the backlog
- Change SABNzbd Queue order (I don't remember how this is implemented in Qouch, but I don't think the standard drag-n-drop reordering from e.g. the Music app is implemented)

Not possible
- Pause/Unpause a TV Show in Sick Beard (not possible today)
- Pause SABNzbd for x minutes (not available)
- Limit SABNzbd download speed (not available)

A big plus for Qouch is that it is a universal app for both iPad and iPhone. At its current pricing it is an obvious buy, but I'm looking forward to improvements in the areas mentioned above. I would rather see fewer features well implemented than more complicated features added.

Thank you for the thorough review!

I can find myself in most of your points, and I'm actually glad to hear ways of use from anyone. Your remark on that it's more developed from a developers' than a users' point of view is correct. It's not impossible for me to think from a users point of view though as I'm a heavy user of all those programs myself, and so I run into the same issues as others.
The thing I've tried to do though is try to keep the flow which you have to follow in SABnzbd, CP and SB itself intact. That's why you get an overview of all statuses when you tap on an episode in Qouch for example. I can't just make a download button because then I'll leave out the users that do want to be able to switch to other statuses, and believe me, there are plenty of those, including myself.

Also, my app is focussed on people that were already using one of the three programs I support. So they should be aware of how those apps work and that's why I see it as a plus that Qouch works in almost the same way.
I do agree with you though that it should be simpler for the more novice users, that's why I also like the way Apple implements their products. Simple, but perfectly worked out functionality, and not to many options. I find it hard to implement such a philosophy in Qouch though due to the before mentioned reasons. But maybe you have a suggestion to fuse both ways into one.

One more thing that I am planning, is a huge UI overhaul which will work more like how the Sparrow app currently works. I like how you can slide away views that you don't need at that moment, but are still able to quickly go back to the main navigation. Such a navigation structure also works a lot better on the iPad than the current UI of Qouch. See the Twitter and Facebook apps for example.
The problem is though that this was my first mobile app ever and that I sticked to the native UI components in the spirit of learning how to work with those first. But all your input is greatly appreciated. Wether it be critics or compliments, I'm open to all suggestions when they are well motivated.

So my target for now is to first get Qouch 90% feature-complete, and then find a good way to implement all those features in a more easy to understand and navigable UI.

qonstrukt wrote:Also, my app is focussed on people that were already using one of the three programs I support. So they should be aware of how those apps work and that's why I see it as a plus that Qouch works in almost the same way.

I'm pretty sure all your users are familiar with the three programs. The thing is that the web UI for these is quite complex (but feature complete). I see the value Qouch adds as being a fast way to get the most common stuff done. Not as a complete replacement to the web UI which is still there if you need it.

I do agree with you though that it should be simpler for the more novice users, that's why I also like the way Apple implements their products. Simple, but perfectly worked out functionality, and not to many options. I find it hard to implement such a philosophy in Qouch though due to the before mentioned reasons. But maybe you have a suggestion to fuse both ways into one.

Good design is very difficult, especially when catering to different needs. I think it would be useful to spend some time thinking about how to make adding TV Shows and episodes simpler which is my main pain point with the current implementation.

One idea might be to show a list of the episodes (like tweets in Tweetbot) with a download button for undownloaded episodes. If you press a single episode it expands and shows all possible
options (wanted, skipped, archived, ignored) as directly selectable. See http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/#gallery if you don't have the app.

Also worth thinking about is implementing gestures for common tasks.

One more thing that I am planning, is a huge UI overhaul which will work more like how the Sparrow app currently works.

That is a great idea. This would give more space to e.g. the episode list and make it possible to enable more advanced (but still easy to use!) UX/UI solutions.

So my target for now is to first get Qouch 90% feature-complete, and then find a good way to implement all those features in a more easy to understand and navigable UI.

Sounds like a plan, I'm looking forward to it!

Hello,

I've just installed Qouch and it works right away for SABNZBD & Couchpotato, but not for Sickbeard

Server is a Synology NAS on 192.168.1.12, ports:

Sabnzbd is on :8080
Couchpotato on :8082
Sickbeard on :8081

For sickbeard I get :

"Sick Beard Connection Failed
Make sure that you're using Sick Beard build 491 or higher, and that the API is enabled in the general configuration page of Sickbeard. Also make sure that the server details are correctly set up in the settings."

What can I do possibly wrong?

Did you check the settings inside Sickbeard like the error suggested?
You'll need to enable the API option and generate an API key. If you can't find that option within Sickbeard your version is too old, and you'll need to update.

Love this app, been a long time user now!

It would be even more amazing if you could pull down to refresh the information onscreen!

Its great to see that LifeHacker have written about it:
http://lifehacker.com/5905171/qouch-man ... user-needs

Hi

Just updated to the newest version.

It's nice to be able to search for nzbs directly from the app, but the function is not at all easy to find. It just doesn't seem obvious to me to choose to add an nzb and then search. Also, it would be nice to be able to search all the nzb sites at once and have the results listed together, like how the sabnzbd+ app does it.

Lastly, what does the "show index in lists" toggle do?

qonstrukt wrote:Did you check the settings inside Sickbeard like the error suggested?
You'll need to enable the API option and generate an API key. If you can't find that option within Sickbeard your version is too old, and you'll need to update.

There's no API option, so I guess I have an older version.

Unfortunately I can't update untill Mr. Zebulon updates his SPK repository on:
http://synopkg.superzebulon.org/spkrepo/packages

Current Sickbeard on there is version 3.1-1

The Zebulon packages are hopelessly out-of-date unfortunately, so I'm afraid I can't support those. The point of an API is that all the different ports act the same to an app like Qouch, but if a specific version doesn't have an API...

@Skeo:
I understand your complaint, so I'll see if I can relocate that functionality to a more sensible spot. The "Show index in lists" toggle enables and alphabetic index in the Wanted movies and TV shows overviews so you can scroll more quickly through large lists, like in the contacts app.