Soooo glad you are working on this DRKLord!!! I love the fact that the coin is maturing to the point that we are focusing some effort beyond the functionality. The first draft is a huge improvement already, so I'm sure the final product will be great.



I'd like to inject an alternative mode of thinking into the discussion... we, as a community of crypto-currency geeks have a strong tendency to overvalue things like recent blocks found, network hashrates, next block difficulty, total blocks found, etc. But if our aim is mainstream adoption of our coin, 99% of users "don't care how the sausage is made, they just want to eat it." We need to value "white space" too, especially for our consumers. They want simple. They want clean. Think of Amazon's pay-now button. Or Apple's home button (the only button on the face of the phone). In my not-so-humble opinion, if we want to make our coin attractive to consumers and merchants, we need to keep the interface clean and easy to digest. No information that doesn't help them figure out how much money they have, and how to transact securely. If it takes a user more than about 10 seconds to read everything on the initial presentation layer, you have way too much on the page.



That said, I think having that stuff as an option is a great idea for "power users" like you and me. But make them options. Strip the whole upper right section down to "network health" and "peer connections". This helps a user understand if the network is up and running for them. Strip the lower left down to exchange rates and value for BTC value and USD (or other currency) value. Have the base currency selector there initially, but once you select USD, have it disappear and initiate a pop-up window that says "Your base currency has been set to USD. If you'd like to change your base currency in the future, you may do so in the xxx menu." If the immature or unconfirmed balances are 0, make them disappear. Basically, I'd encourage you to constantly be asking yourself, "would this confuse my mom?" (grandma is probably a step too far) and "what else can I get rid of?".



If you want an "advanced" version with all these bells and whistles, have a selection when the wallet is first opened that asks "what kind of user are you?" Merchants might get one set of tools. Personal wallets another. And "Power User" could include all the default options that a miner or enthusiast might want.



Next, my unreasonable wish list of features:

1) An optional sound notification that you've received a payment / mined. Preferably one you can set yourself.

2) The ability to add notes to each transaction... what the hell was the "Received with" on June 7th for? I have no idea.

3) +1 on client update notifications. Peercoin just displays a "update your clients before July 17th" message on their bottom row... you could use their code as a guide / idea generator for how to implement. I would caution against auto update. This is risking a hacker attack IMO.

4) Keep the long term in mind... would be good to design the interface knowing that you will need the same look and feel on Android and iOS in the future.

5) Basic merchant tools (e.g., a quick and dirty currency converter where a merchant could enter an amount in local currency and it tells them how much DRK to charge)



And finally (you'll be rid of me after this), I would encourage us all to not "judge the world based on our own irrelevant experiences". When ready, I would pull together some screenshots and some questions / options around functionality and look/feel and do a survey on survey monkey. You could have some qualifying questions upfront like "what is your level of interest in Bitcoin?" and "Do you own or operate a business?" etc. and get some reaction from merchants and consumers. Ask them what they would want from the wallet. I guarantee that the results will surprise you and hopefully help shape the final product.



Hope this helps shape your approach!!! I'm really looking forward to a new "non-bitcoin" wallet!!! Getting it right is just as important as the back end.