> $ sudo apt purge transmission && sudo apt install transmission
Hmm, that seems to have worked. No idea why, but thanks for the tip. I would have tried that before posting here, but for some reason I thought Transmission was part of the default desktop package, and that if I tried to uninstall it, apt would want to uninstall all the default DE packages with it.
Thanks too to Mistah Darcy for the suggestion to try uBitTorrent. There are certainly some things I like about it, the UI makes more detailed information more easily available about what's happening with each torrent, tracker etc. But overall I like the Transmission UI better, it just feels better integrated with the Mate desktop. The only time it lets me down on that front is when it refuses, to snap to half the screen when dragged against one side, as other windows usually do.
