Your first FreeCast network

Your first FreeCast network
	Chapter 2. Getting started

You need to have a Java Runtime Environment 1.4 or 1.5 installed, see http://www.java.com
Start FreeCast Manager via JavaWebStart
When loaded, the FreeCast Manager starts, configures the FreeCast network and displays the GUI.

General GUI layout

The FreeCast Manager GUI regroups the activity indicators of the embedded tracker and root node.

Tracker

The node count is displayed in realtime. At startup, a single node is counted: it's the embedded root node.

Root Node

For the root node, the connected node count is displayed. The first listener nodes will be displayed in this count, the following nodes will be connected to these first nodes.

Actions

The action menu can be displayed by right-clicking on the GUI. This menu allows the following actions:

Browse network homepage

Starts your browser to visit the web homepage of the FreeCast network. This web homepage is hosted by the embedded web server provided by the FreeCast Manager. This page will be used by listeners to easily start their nodes.

Don't publish the URL displayed by your browser, use the Email network homepage action instead.

Email network homepage

Creates a base email to inform your first listeners. The created email contains the URL to be used to visit the homepage of your FreeCast network.

Subject: My FreeCast Network

Visit the homepage of my FreeCast network: http://84.67.103.24:8080/

Complete and send this email to your first listeners. They just have to visit the given URL and click on the start button.

	Different URLs and some don't work
	According to your network configuration, the FreeCast Manager can use several URLs to designate the homepage of your FreeCast network. The main cause is that you can have to use a different URL than your listeners to access to your own computer. The FreeCast manager respects this constraint. Take care to use the URL specified in the email to invite your listeners.

Configure FreeCast

Select this menu to start the Setup Dialog, see the section called “Setup Dialog”.