I like the box.net guys, they're doing some pretty cool stuff with backups. It's an idea I'd been playing with for a while, a straight-forward sync/backup service. They've done a good job.

Anyway, they recently released an update to their Windows client software and I sent them some feedback which I thought some other developers might find interesting and I'd be interested to hear what other box.net beta testers thought of it.

Box.net Settings Form

1. Thank you SO much for putting the windows border back to single. I've yet to be happy with an app that doesn't use the standard form border. It looks nicer without, but there's far too much functionality lost. I'm sure if MS had real user interface guidelines - that'd be number 1.
2. Your addition to the explorer context menu is perfect - excellent idea, but I think you need to handle the adding of a new sync on a new background thread. Even if you want to suspend access to the UI while a sync is being added, you need to make sure it doesn't cause the UI to stop redrawing.
3. Feature request - create an icon to go on the quick launch bar that reacts to folders/files being dropped onto it. Like dropsend. I love that, it's like a little piece of the OS X on your windows desktop :)
4. The box.net notifyIcon never seems to go idle - it also doesn't have a tool tip on hovering over - so it looks like it's crashed. It's the only icon i have permanently, all others hide themselves when idle. Give it a tool-tip/title, but make sure it's relevant to the state of the app. So if it's uploading, make it something like "Box.net desktop - uploading your stuff...", and then it should just identify itself when idle - since I shouldn't actually be able to see it. Also, because it has no title, it appears as "" in the start menu config.
5. Your scroll bars used within the app don't seem to reflect the size of the document they are scrolling - not a biggie, but a little confusing.
6. The semi-transparent upload bar/widget is just amazing - so satisfying to use! I love it! I'd say that should be your default when double clicking the notifyIcon? "Settings" feels more like a single-click or context-menu type action. I'd also add a close cross to it in the usual place (like OS X widgets).
7. The notifyIcon's context menu doesn't have a highlighted default. At the moment double-clicking seems to simply show the form, therefore remembering the last place I was. I quite like this, but you do need a default action I'd say - maybe simply "Show Control Panel" that is bolder.
8. The action performed when clicking the maximise button is totally unexpected... This should either maximise the form or the button should be disabled. I think you need another way of launching the widget.