A Freesite Uploading Tool Developed by Bombe

jSite is a tool that you can use to insert freesites into the Freenet distributed storage. Creating a freesite is done in two steps: first you build a website in HTML, then you upload your creation to Freenet. That's when jSite comes into the picture: with a nice user-friendly point-and-click interface and five languages to choose from, uploading freesites couldn't be easier. jSite is written in Java; it will run on any java-enabled operating system, no need for Windows versions, Mac versions, etc.; one file fits all--and that file is jSite.jar

You can the latest version from the official Freenet website: http://downloads.freenetproject.org/alpha/jSite/jSite.jar

First and foremost, jSite requires Java 1.5 or better and a Freenet node installed and running.

For a jSite guide with screenshots, you can visit the jSite HowTo. A pictureless guide is provided below.

Run the application by typing this at the command line:

java -jar jSite.jar

(Windows users can launch the JAR file via command line or Windows Explorer)

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 "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 recognize 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/. If it does, press Enter and your node will try to retrieve the page from Freenet and displays it.

Check that 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.

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:

$ java -jar jSite.jar --debug

Debug message often describe the exact error that happened.

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

$ java -jar jSite.jar --help
--help  shows this cruft
--debug enables some debug output

The important in practice is debug option.

(Not much, I promise)

No need to go into the details of Freenet keys here. Basically you need a key to get a file from Freenet, including html files that freesites are made of. When you insert a freesite, jSite generates both a public and a private key for your site.

The public key is "the key to the site" that you announce on FMS which Freenet users paste into their browsers to visit your freesite.

The private key is stored on your computer. jSite uses it when you update your freesite, which means that if you lose the directory where jSite stores its data, you won't be able to update your freesite(s). Therefore, you don't want to lose the jSite data directory. Back it up and back up the back-up!

As we have seen, you definitely want to back up the jSite application data folder. Remember to update your back-up often, ideally every time you update a freesite.

On Windows, jSite data is stored in C:\documents and settings\\application data\.jSite where is your user name.

• Note: Windows hides 'Application Data' folders by default: you may have to change the settings in Windows Explorer.

If your operating system is Unix-based (that includes Ubuntu and any other Linux distribution, plus another bunch of operating systems, including macOS) the folder you want to back up is: /home//.jSite where is your user name

• Note: on Unix-based systems, folders with a dot at the beginning of the name are invisible by default. Enable 'show invisible files' in order to see them

So far, we have downloaded jSite, we have learned how we can use it to upload freesites into the Freenet distributed storage, and also that it is important to back up a folder called .jSite. Now what?

Now you can investigate some other applications Freenet provides on the Applications page.