Exhale Quickstart Guide

This quickstart guide assumes that a self-contained website has been designed on your local machine by yourself. The website should not contain links to any external websites. The only links should be to other Freesites for simplicity. For the purposes of this guide, we will use the Irving-Irving website as an example. The website was created in a self-contained directory.

1. Startup and Configuration

Start Exhale by clicking on the Exhale icon. The splash screen should show up at this point. If this is your first time running the program, you'll be met with a dialog asking for some specifics of your freenet node.  If your freenet node is running on the computer on which Exhale is running, the defaults should be specific.  Otherwise, specify the host and port.  The HTL setting can be left as the default value.  You'll next be met with the main window.

2. Project Creation

For the moment, lets assume we are inserting a project, not just a single file. Single file inserts are much simpler than the project insert, so it is left to the user to determine how to perform a single file insert (until there is a true manual). Go to the project window and select the option to choose your project directory, as shown in the figure. You will be greeted with a Windows directory chooser that will allow you to select a folder. The user should select the directory that contains the entire constructed Freesite.

The project is not yet complete, however. Select "Project Options..." from the project menu. In this dialog, the name of the project is selected as well as the type. The types of projects are explained in the Exhale FAQ (Not available in Freenet). Finally, the keypair for the project must be generated. More information about the purpose of the keypair is available in the Exhale FAQ. Make sure that you are connected to a working Freenet node before attempting this step. Pressing the "Generate" button will connect to the Freenet node and request a new keypair. This process may take a minimal amount of time on slower systems, so Exhale may appear to freeze momentarily. After the generation of the keypair is complete, close the window. Do not hand-edit the keypairs, or the project insert will not work.

Now that the project is complete, it is recommended that the project be saved. Select "Save Project..." in the Project menu. The project definition fileshould be saved somewhere outside the project directory because, if the file is in the project directory, it will be inserted along with the rest of the project files, making your Private Key available to all Freenet users. At a later time, if you wish to insert an updated edition or reinsert a one-shot site to improve availability, The project file can be reloaded using the "Load Project..." option in the Project menu.

The user should note that the saved project file simply contains information about the project; the content of the project still remains in the specified project directory.

3. Project Insertion

Once the construction of the project is complete, the user may insert the project. Select "Insert Project" from the Freenet menu. After selecting this menu option, Exhale will scan the project directory and load the files into the File Queue. The File Queue basically tracks the status of all files Exhale is currently waiting to insert, inserting, or completed.

The user can now sit back and wait.  Switching back and forth between the File Queue and Project tabs will show the individual file insertion and the project status respectively.  When a file or project has been successfully completed, the status will switch to "Complete".  Problem files or projects can be aborted using the Abort button on the toolbar.

Once the project is complete, right click on the project in the Project tab. Select "Copy Freesite address to clipboard" to retrieve the project URL. Paste this into your browser to view the inserted project.