jSite

jSite is a graphical application that you can use to create, insert and manage your own Freenet sites. It was written in Java by Bombe. It comes packaged with the Freenet installer, so it should be in your main Freenet directory.

Using jSite

First and foremost, jSite requires Java 1.5 or better.

Run the application by typing this at the command line:

You should see a window titled Select a Project.

• Click on the Add Project button.

• Under the Project Information section, enter:
  • Name - this is just a name for you to know the project, so anything will do. It can contain spaces.
  • Description - again, just a slightly longer description of the project for you own convenience.
  • Local Path - This is a directory where you will store all the pages of the freesite you are creating. Put in the full path. You can click the Browse button to select a directory graphically or just type it in.

• Under the Address section, you have:
  • Request URI - this is filled in automatically and should be a long string of seemingly random characters starting "freenet:SSK@..."
  • Insert URI - this is also filled in automatically and will look similar to the Request URI..
  • Path - You need to enter a single word here without spaces. This will appear at the end of the address of your site. You can't leave this blank.

• Now click the Next button.

The next window is called Project Files.

• At the moment the area at the top is blank because we haven't created any files to make up our freesite. So, keeping jSite open in the background, create some HTML files using whatever web designing application you prefer, and save them in the Local Path directory you specified earlier.

• Go back to the jSite window and click the Re-scan button. You should now see the files you just added in the top area.

• Highlight one of these files that will be your default page (e.g. index.html might be a good choice) and check the Default file checkbox. It should recognise the MIME type as text/html, so leave everything else as they are and click the Next button.

If everything is fine, you should see the Project Insert window.

• This has a progress bar as your site is being uploaded to Freenet. It may take several minutes, even for small files, so be patient.

• The "Freesite:" line you can see on this window will be part of the address of your new site, but don't worry, you can get this from the main Select a Project windows as well. The "Copy URI to Clipboard" button that is disabled when you start inserting will be enabled as soon as the node determines the final address of the site.

• When the insert has finished, you will get a message pop up telling you that the project has been inserted successfully. Click Copy URI to Clipboard to copy the final URI of your site to the clipboard so you can paste it easily to wherever you need it. Pressing Next on the Project Insert window will take you back to the first Select a Project window.

• On the left panel, highlight the name of the project you just created, and the fields on the right should get populated with the details you entered earlier.

• To see the site you just added to Freenet, press the Copy URI to Clipboard button above the site details. Open your browser, enter the address of your node (e.g. http://localhost:8888/∞) and paste the key directly after the final "/". It should look something like this: http://localhost:8888/USK@fgh6yZ...BABAA/mysite/1/. It it does, press Enter and your node will try to retrieve the page from Freenet and displays it.

Check you can visit your site by putting this address into a web browser.

If it works, congratulations! You've just added your freesite to Freenet.

Troubleshooting

If something goes wrong, jSite often displays a very generic error message:
"Insert failed. The insert of the project failed. Some files could not be inserted"

The best way to troubleshoot jSite is to run it with --debug option, as follows:

Debug message often describe the exact error that happened.

Command line options

jSite has a few command line options that can be seen by using --help option:

The important in practice is debug option.