Interface

News-Feed

news feed interface

The News Feed displays the last events on your network, sorted by the time you received them. This gives you a summary of the activity of your friends. You can configure which events to show by pressing on Options.

The various events shown are:

  • Connection attempts (useful to make friends with new people and control who's trying to reach you)
  • Channel and Forum posts
  • New Channel and Forums you can subscribe to
  • Private messages from your friends

news feed example
This shows an entry in the newsfeed because a friend came online, and this friend sent a message.

Network

network interface
The Network tab shows your friend RetroShare nodes: the neighbor RetroShare nodes that are connected to you.
You can group nodes together to allow a finer level of information access, for instance to only allow some nodes to see some of your files.

On the right, you will find 3 useful tabs:

  • Broadcast
    sends messages to all connected nodes at once
  • Local network graph
    shows the network around you, based on discovery information
  • Keyring
    contains node keys you collected, mostly forwarded to you by your friend nodes

Network
The Red Queen is having a friend in here Network/Friendlist. It's the User Bunny and RedQueen is connected to both of his Locations. Bunny runs two different locations. One for each of his device. The location shelter is running on his laptop, and the location hole is on his personal Computer.

Change Avatar

Avatar and Message
By clicking on the default Avatar Icon you can set your avatar picture to any picture you prefer.

empty Avatar
Only your friends will be able to see it. You can also change it later on.

Change Avatar

Status Message

Status Button
Your status message will be shown in the Network/Friendlist of your friends beside your Avatar. Status Edit

Friendlist

Friends are sorted by name or by state.

Friendlist

The columns with the last contact and ip can be enabled with right click.
Tree View

Broadcast

The Broadcast Chat sends a message to all online friends at once. Broadcast

Network Graph

The network graph shows all friends and their interconnections. Bunny has friended with Alice and RedQueen. Graph

Keyring

RetroShare collects keys from other nodes in the network, mostly forwarded by friends.
Keyring

Columns of the Keyring

  • Do you accept connections signed by this key
  • Name of the Key
  • This column indicates the trust level and wheter you signed their key
  • Did that peer sign your key
  • Certificate ID
  • Last time this certificate has been used

Colours

  • Yellow is your own Key
  • Green are Friends
  • Grey are Persons

People

people interface

Identities are used to securely identify your data: sign messages in chat lobbies, forum and channel posts, receive feedback using RetroShare built-in email system, post comments after channel posts, chat using secured tunnels, etc.

person

Identities

Two kinds of Identities can be utilized.

Click the add ID Icon to create a new Identity add ID menu

Pseudonymous Identities

Identities can optionally be signed by your RetroShare node's certificate. Signed identities are easier to trust but are easily linked to your node's IP address.

pseudo ID create

  • Identiy Name
    Name of the Identity. It is not necessary to use the same name as
    your Node User. But it's common.
  • Identity ID
    Each Identity has it's own crypto hash ID number.
  • Type
    Owned by you and linked to your RetroShare Node. Instead of Anonymous
  • Owner Node ID
    GPG-ID Number used by your Node
  • Owner Node Name
    User Name of your Node User
  • Last Used
    Last time the Identity has been in use. This can be a forum post or anything else.
  • Your opinion
    Your opininon on your owned ID is Neutral. This is used to rate other ID's for a reputation system.
  • Auto-Ban all identities from this node
    Ban all ID's from a specific node.
  • Neighbor nodes
    Average opinion of neighbor nodes about this identity. Negative is bad, positive is good. Zero is neutral.
  • Overall
    Overall reputation score, accounting for yours and your friends'. Negative is bad, positive is good. Zero is neutral. If the score is too low, the identity is flagged as bad, and will be filtered out in forums, chat lobbies, channels, etc.

pseudo bunny ID

Anonymous Identities

Anonymous identities allow you to anonymously interact with other users. They cannot be spoofed, but noone can prove who really owns a given identity.

create freebunny ID

  • Identity Name
    Name of the Identity. Can be named anything.
  • Identity ID
    Each Identity has it's own crypto hash ID number.
  • Type
    Anonymous identity
  • Last Used
    Last time the Identity has been in use. This can be a forum post or anything else.
  • Your opinion
    Your opininon on your owned ID is Neutral. This is used to rate other ID's for a reputation system.
  • Neighbor nodes
    Average opinion of neighbor nodes about this identity. Negative is bad, positive is good. Zero is neutral.
  • Overall
    Overall reputation score, accounting for yours and your friends'. Negative is bad, positive is good. Zero is neutral. If the score is too low, the identity is flagged as bad, and will be filtered out in forums, chat lobbies, channels, etc.

freebunny ID

Circles

Circles

Circles are groups of identities (anonymous or signed), that are shared at a distance over the network. They can be used to restrict the visibility to forums, channels, etc.
A circle can be restricted to another circle, thereby limiting it's visibility to members of that circle or even self-restricted, meaning that it is only visible to invited members.

Create Circles

Click the add ID Icon to create a new Identity add ID menu

  • public circle Public
    Publicly distributed circles, are visible to your friends, which will get to know the circle data (Creator, members, etc)
  • private Circle Private
    Private (a.k.a. self-restricted) circles are only visible to the invited members of these circles. In practice the circle uses its own list of invited members to limit its own distribution.
  • limit Circle Only visible to members of another Circle
    Circles can be restricted to the members of another circle. Only the members of that second circle will be allowed to see the new circle and its contents (list of members, etc).
  • Invited Members
    Members of this list will be automatically proposed to join the circle (by accepting membership). They will not receive data that is restricted to this circle until they do so.

The circle name, contact author and invited member list will be visible to all invited members. If the cricle is not private, it will also be visible to neighbor nodes of the nodes who host the invited members.

Umbrella Circles

Join Circles

Umbrella Circle Empty

Accept your circle invitation by right clicking
Join Invitation

Umbrella Circles

File Sharing

filesharing interface

RetroShare provides two ways of transferring files:

  • direct file transfers from your friends
  • distant anonymous tunneled transfers
    In addition, file transfer is multi-source and allows swarming (you can be source while downloading).

up and down In this Screenshot, the files are not yet finished and still start to upload to other friends.

Download

downlaod

Columns from the Download Tab downlaod tab

  • Name
    Name of the file
  • Size
    Size of the downloaded
  • Completed
    already downloaded size
  • Speed
    actual speed of the download
  • Progress / Availability
    each Chunk (1 Chunk = 1MB part) is shows it status by colour progress bar

    • Blue - already finished
    • Red - active download
    • Yellow - calculating checksums
    • empty - not downloaded yet
  • Sources
    active sources in brackets the total number of available files in the network

  • Status
    • Waiting
    • Downloading
    • Paused
      manually paused state, can be resumed also
    • Checking
      calculating checksums of all Chunks of the Download
    • Completed
      The Download has finished, and should be available in the Download Directorie
  • Speed / Queue position
    • Faster
    • Average
    • Slower
  • Remaining
    remaining file size to download till it's finished
  • Download Time
    estimated time to finish the download
  • Hash
    Hash number of the file SHA1
  • Last Time Seen
    last time when the source of this file has been available
  • Path
    destination folder

Multiple Sources

Multi Sources are shown in the Sources Column and can be displayed in detail by clicking the dropdown button

  • active tunnel active source transferring data
  • yellow tunnel no data currently transferring

Context Menu

By right-clicking on the download, the Context menu provides actions to the user.

context menu download

  • Priority
    context menu priority
  • Chunk Strategy
    context menu strategy
  • Rename file...
  • Set destination directory
    context menu destination
    Set the directory where the file should be put when it's completed
  • Pause
    Pause the download and resume it later
  • Force Check
    Trigger a check of the checksums manually
  • Cancel
    Stop the download
  • Open Folder
    Open the Folder where the file has been downloaded
  • Details...
    show Details from the download. context menu details
  • Clear Completed
    removes finished downloads, and removes them from the Download Tab
  • Copy RetroShare Link
    copy the RetroShare Link to the Clipboard
    retroshare://file?name=RetroShare-0.6.1-Windows-Portable-20161005-d020d8d8-Qt-5.7.0-dev.7z&size=20476577&hash=d5d91d4ec9438c6df2dcbd9236d4faebd2eef75d
    

context menu details links

  • Expand all
    Open all downloads with multi source dropdown buttons
  • Collapse all
    Collapes all downloads with open multisources
  • Collection
    context menu collection
    • download from .rscollection files

You can share files using the "Directory Plus" icon from the left side bar. These files will be listed in the My Files tab. You can decide for each friend group wheter they can or not see these files in their Friends Files tab.

The search tab reports files from your friends' file lists, and distant files that can be reached anonymously using the multi-hop tunneling system.

Upload

upload

Columns from the Upload Tab uplaod tab

  • Name
    Name of the uploaded File
  • Size
    Size of the uploaded File
  • Transferred
    Already transferred File
  • Speed
    Speed of the upload
  • Progress
    Progress Map of the transferred Chunks
  • Status
    Status of the Upload
  • Peer
    virtual peer
  • Hash
    Hash of the uploaded File
  • UserID
    UserID of the Peer

file search

upload

RetroShare can search in the Network for shared files.

  • Advanced
    Add detailed search criterias
  • Browsable Files
    Search in Browsable shared directories from direct friends
  • Distant
    Search in Anonymous Shared directories in the network
  • Own Files
    Search in your own Shared directories
  • Clear Clear the search results

Search Results

  • Filename Shows a Mime Type and the File name of the result
  • Size
    Shows the size of the result
  • Sources
    available sources
  • Type Mime Type
  • Age
    last time seen online
  • Hash
    SHA1 Hash of the file

Friends Files

Friends Files When Friends share directories browsable, it's possible to browse them.

Browsable Directory

By right-clicking you can download entire folder

  • Download
    download entire folder structures
  • Create .rscollection's

The entire Folder structure and the files get downloaded. Entire Folder downloading

My Files

my Shared Files

By clicking on the add share icon, the Share Manager opens. In the Share Manager it's possible to create virtual Shares for different directories and grant different permission rolls. share manager

For details on permission levels, share flags and share manager please go to Settings/Directories.

my Shared Files

Chat Lobbies

chat-lobbies interface
Chat lobbies are distributed chat rooms, and work pretty much like IRC or XMPP/Jabber. They allow you to talk anonymously with tons of people without the need to make friends. Chatrooms are decentralized and serverless. This means they do not require a central server and are shared between direct friends. All participants receive all messages. Once the lobby is created you can invite other friends from the friends tab.

Types of Chat Rooms

  • Public Chatrooms
    You can join all chatrooms which are subscribed by your friends.
    Your friends will be able to join all chatrooms which you have subscribed.
  • Private Chatrooms
    This chatrooms is only visible and shared to invited members. Your friends can't see it, unless you invite them. Once you have been invited to a private lobby, you will be able o see it when your friends are using it.

empty chatrooms

Chat Room Creation

Click the add ID Icon to create a new Chat room.

  • Lobby name
    The name of the Chatroom. It can't be changed afterwards.
  • Lobby topic
    A welcome message in the Lobby room. It can't be changed afterwards.
  • Identiy to use
    select identity
    This needs to be one of your identies created in People
  • Visibility
    select visibility
    For a list of Chatroom see Types
  • Security
    If you check this, only PGP-signed ids can be used to join and talk in this lobby. This limitation prevents anonymous spamming as it becomes possible for at least some people in the lobby to locate the spammer's node.
  • Contacts
    Initially send invitations to online friends of your Node. Only direct friends can join with their Identities.

chatroom creation

The choosen contacts will be invited to the join the chatroom with an identity.

  • Choose an identity for this lobby: bunny choose id

chatroom invitation

The Friend Bunny has joined the newly created Chatroom and starts chatting. Now all Friends of The Public Chatroom propagates to all Friends of Bunny and they can join as well.
chatroom established

Join Existing Chatrooms

Join existing chatrooms by double clicking or right-clicking.

Join Chatroom

Right click offers following possibilities

  • Enter this lobby
    Joins the Chatroom
  • Add Auto Subscribe
    Joins the Chatroom and adds auto subscribe. So this Chatroom will be joined also after each restart again.
  • Columns
    • Count
      Shows a count of members in this Chatroom
    • Topic
      Displays the Topic
    • Subscribed
      If you are already subscribed or not

enter chatrooms

Chat Room Usage

Note: For the chat lobbies to work properly, your computer needs be on time. So check your systems clock!

Chat Window

  • invite to chatroom invite
    invite friends to this chatroom
  • leave chatroom leave
    leave the chatroom
  • add smileys smileys
    choose one of these smileys
    choose one of these smileys
  • attach picture attach picture
    attach a picture into your chat message
  • attach file attach file
    attach files from your computer into your chat message
  • settings settings
    • Clear Chat History
      emptys the chat window
    • Delete Chat History
      deletes stored
    • Save Chat History
      Save Chat History to a file
    • Browse Message History Browse the already saved Message History
    • Set text font color Change your color and font
    • Switch Identity
      Change your Identity
      chat settings menu
  • search search
    Search the Chatroom Messages for a keyword
  • send send
    Send your typed message to the Chatroom

chatroom usage

Participant List

All Members of the Chatroom are shown in the list at the left.

Participant List

Chat Status Button

The coloured circle shows the status of the participant

  • Yellow - Your Own ID Yellow
    This is your own identity
  • Active IDGreen
    Active, this Identity has been in use in the last 300 seconds
  • Grey - not activeGrey
    This Identity is not active in this chatroom.
Chat ID Tooltip

Hover with your mouse over the ID and some information will pop up in the tooltip. Chat ID Tooltip

Chat ID Actions

When you right-click on the Chat ID, an additional context menu will popup and show some actions.

  • Start private chat
    Opens a distant chat to that person
  • Send Message
    Opens the message composer to send a mail to this Identity
  • Sort by Activity
  • Sort by Name
  • Mute participant
    Mute the participant in this room
  • Ban this person (sets negative opinion)
    Bans the whole Identity. Does not display Content (Forum posts, Channel messages, posted links, ... ) neither does the content of this person get's forwarded to friends anymore.

Context Menu Chat ID

Messages

messages interface
RetroShare has its own internal email system. You can send/receive emails to/from connected friend nodes.

It is also possible to send messages to other people's Identities using the global routing system. These messages are always encrypted and signed, and are relayed by intermediate nodes until they reach their final destination.

Distant messages stay into your Outbox untial an acknowledgment of receipt has been received.

Generally, you mey use messages to recommended files to your friends by pasting file links, or recommend friend nodes to other friend nodes, in order to strenghten your networ, or send feedback to a channel's owner.

Channels

channels interface
Channels allow you to post data (e.g. movies, music) that will spread the network.

You can see the channels your friends are subscribed to, and you automatically forward subscribed channels to your friends. This promotes good channels in the network.

Only the channel's creator can post on that channel. Other peers in the network can only read from it, unless the channel is private. You can however share the posting rights or the reading rights with friend RetroShare nodes.

Channels can be made anonymous, or attached to a RetroShare identity so that readers can contact you if needed. Enable "Allow Comments" if you want to let users comment on your posts.

Channel posts get deleted after 4 months.

Create a Channel

When RetroShare starts, there are no Channels available initially. Channels interface

To Create a new Channel click on the Create Channel Create Button.

Initial Channel

Following Settings can be done for Channels

  • Name
    Name of the Channel
  • Icon
    An Icon which will be shown
  • Owner
    Choose a GXS-ID Identity to have the Channel signed.
  • Message Distribution
    • public Forum Public
      Message will spread way beyond your friend nodes, as long as people subscribe to the channel/forum/posted you're creating.
    • Circle Restricted Forum Restricted to Circle
      Message will spread among RetroShare nodes that host one of the identities listed as member of the circle and who also subscribe the media. Only these nodes will be able to see that this forum/channel/posted media exists.
    • Network Forum Only For Your Friends
      Messages will only be distributed to the selected subset of your friend nodes. They will not forward messages with each other, but only use your own node as a central hub to distribute them.
  • Description
  • Comments
    • Allow Comments
    • No Comments

New Channel

The newly created Channel will be shared to your friends. They can subscribe it and re-share it to their friends.

Created Channel

Subscribe a Channel

When your friends share a channel to you, it will be available in Popular Channels or Other Channels. Subcribe Channel

Rightclick the Channel and choose the Subcribe Channel Subscribe Button in the context menu.
Subcribed Channel

Post to Channel

Click the Post Channel Message Post to Channel Button to create a new Post. Empty Channel

Empty Post

Set the title, a description, maybe an icon and attach the files you want to share in your channel.

Channel Posts Details

Posts Attachments
When you save your Channel Posts they should line up and get transfered to yoru friends.

Three Channel Posts

Forums

forums interface
RetroShare Forums look like internet forums, but they work in a decentralized way.

empty forums

You see forums your friends are subscribed to, and you forward subscribed forums to your friends. This automatically promotes interresting forums in the network. Forum messages get deleted after 12 months.

Forum Settings

create forums

  • Name
    Name of the Forum
  • Owner
    Owner of the Forum
  • Add Forum Admins
    Key recipients can publish to restricted-type group and can view and publish for private-type channels.

Forum Message Distribution

  • public Forum Public
    Message will spread way beyond your friend nodes, as long as people subscribe to the channel/forum/posted you're creating.
  • Circle Restricted Forum Restricted to Circle
    Message will spread among RetroShare nodes that host one of the identities listed as member of the circle and who also subscribe the media. Only these nodes will be able to see that this forum/channel/posted media exists.
  • Network Forum Only For Your Friends
    Messages will only be distributed to the selected subset of your friend nodes. They will not forward messages with each other, but only use your own node as a central hub to distribute them.

Description

Spam Protection

posts permissions

  • Posts permissions
    This combo box allows you to choose how posts are handled depending on the node the poster belongs to.
  • All allowed
    all posts are treated equally
  • Defavor posts from unsigned IDs
    anonymous IDs will require a reputation of 0.4 to be received/forwarded.
  • Defavor posts from unsigned IDs and IDs from unknown nodes
    anonymous IDs and IDs signed by unknown RetroShare nodes will require a reputation of 0.4 to be received/forwarded.

Create Forums

click the create forum button button, and fill in the name and select a Message Distribution Type.

create forums

Your newly created Forum will be available at my forums My Forums
my forums

Empty new Forum without any Threads
Post New Thread

Post new Thread

click on the Post New Thread icon to create a new post.

Edit New Thread

Thread Created

Reply a Post

click on the reply post icon to create a new post.

Reply to Post

Reply

Thread Answered

Forum Details

  • my forums My Forums
  • subscribed forums Subscribed Forums
  • Popular Forums Popular Forums
  • other Forums Other Forums

  • post thread Post Thread

  • Thread Title
  • Forum View
  • Last Post
  • Threaded View
  • Flat View
    forum view
  • Post Reply Post Reply
  • Previous Thread Previous Thread
  • Next Thread Next Thread
  • Download All Download All
  • Next unread Next unread
  • Change Forum Sort Forum Sort

    • Sort by Name
    • Sort by Popularity
    • Sort by Last Post
    • Sort by Posts
      forums Sort

Posted

posted interface

Plugin Posted

FeedReader

feedreader interface

The posted service allows to share internet links, that spread among RetroShare nodes like forums and channels.

Links can be commented by subscribed users. A promotion system also gives the opportunity to enlight important links.

There is no restriction on which links are shared. Be carefull when clicking on them.

Posted links get deleted after 4 months.

Add

Add interface

Options

settings interface

The Options/Settings are explained more detailed here.

 interface

About

about interface

About

The about section shows the RetroShare version and Revision and Qt Version about interface

About RetroShare

Contains a small description and links to:
- RetroShare WebSite
- legacy WebSite on SourceForge has been renewed
- legacy Wiki on SourceForge
- RetroShare Organization on GitHub
- RetroShare Forum
- DevBlog
- Twitter
about retroshare interface

Authors

Over the years lot of different People have helped to improve RetroShare.

To be named in front:
Lead Developer csoler
Founder drBob

and many many more

authors retroshare interface

Thanks to

nanos gigantum humeris insidentes - dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants

RetroShare couldn't exist without the building upon the work of other great projects.

thanks retroshare interface

Translation

translation retroshare interface

License Agreement

License Agreement interface

Quit

quit interface

To close RetroShare click on the quit button and choose yes at the popup.

really quit interface