Main Window

Overview

BearShare uses a Windows style Property Sheet to allow you to easily navigate between the logical sections of the program. Like all other Windows property sheets, you can move forward between tabs by pressing CTRL+TAB, or by holding down the SHIFT key while pressing CTRL+TAB to move backwards. This works in the main view as well as the zoom view.

Appearance

Main View

The main view is a resizable property sheet window. You can switch between the different parts of the program by clicking on the tabs, or by pressing CTRL+TAB or SHIFT+CTRL+TAB. The window may be resized from any edge. In this mode, you may minimize, maximize, or restore the window.

Tip To bring up the about box, click on the system menu (the small icon in the top left of the window) and choose About. The version of BearShare is displayed in the dialog.

Header Control

The header control operates in each of the lists, and allows you to resize the columns as well as set the type of sorting or remove sorting. You can change the sort direction by clicking on the column. To remove the sort, click again until the sort indicator disappears. Note that if there are a large number of items in a changing list (like 20,000 search results with more coming in), sorting on a column may slow your computer down.

You can resize columns by clicking with the left or right mouse button while the cursor is in a divider. The cursor will change to indicate you are in the resizing portion of the column header. Clicking and dragging with the right mouse button has a different behavior than clicking and dragging with the left mouse button. Both methods can be used at the appropriate time to achieve perfect one-drag column management.

While you are resizing a column, you can cancel the resize operation by clicking the opposite button while you are resizing. Than can be useful if you want to temporarily make a column larger to view some information, and then put the columns back the way they were

During a column resize operation, you may move the divider all the way to the left of the list view, or all the way to the right. The other columns will grow, shrink, or move aside as necessary to accomodate your desired positioning.

You can change the order of the columns by left clicking and dragging the column to the desired location. Columns can also be added and removed through the column menu. To access the column menu, right click in the header control. Each of the possible fields is displayed. Fields which are visible are checked. Choosing an item causes the field to appear or disappear. When you are making a hidden field visible, you can control the location where it appears by right clicking in the new spot.

Zoom Mode

You can get to Zoom View by double clicking in the gray area of the main window, outside of the tab section. Zoom View shows you the main list for the current page. You can switch between pages in Zoom View by pressing CTRL+TAB or SHIFT+CONTROL+TAB.

To move the window in Zoom Mode, click and drag in the border area. To restore the window, double click in the border area. In Zoom View, the window can be made smaller than the minimum of the main view.

Server View

Server View shows only the indicators. The Server View window is always on top, and does not appear in the taskbar or the program switching menu.

You can move the window in Server View by clicking and dragging anywhere in the window. You can get to the Server View by double clicking the status indicators. To leave Server View, double click the window.

Right clicking in Server View brings up the Taskbar Menu.

Taskbar Mode

BearShare automatically goes into system tray when you exit and there are transfers in progress. While in the system tray, the taskbar tab is removed, and does does not appear in the program switching menu.

When the transfers are completed, BearShare will exit from the system tray.

You can restore the program window by double clicking the taskbar icon, or by choosing Restore from the Taskbar Menu. To access the Taskbar Menu, right click the taskbar icon. Choosing Exit from the Taskbar Menu will forcibly shut down the program after a confirmation dialog. This interrupts any uploads or downloads in progress.

When BearShare goes to the system tray, active searches are canceled and host connections are shut down. Incoming connections are refused, and new upload requests receive a service unavailable message. If BearShare is restored, connections will be re-established if automatic connections are enabled in the Hosts Page.

Status Indicators

These indicators provide information about the status of different components of the FreePeers Agent. The indicators can be used to determine the state of your servent without switching between the pages in the window. The indicators may also be used to diagnose problems with your connections, transfers, or shared files.

This is what each indicator means, from left to right:

Connection

The Connection indicator shows you the status of your connection to the Gnutella network. These are the possible states for the connection indicator:
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off You are not connected to the network.
Green, Flashing You are connected to the network, but there are no incoming messages. Your connection is idle. This is normal if you are connected to a Deflector proxy.
Green, On You are connected to the network and messages are coming in. If you have automatic connections enabled, then the minimum number of connections you specified has been reached.
Yellow, Flashing You are connected to the network, but the minimum number of connections you specified has not been reached.
Yellow, On One or more hosts have reached a bandwidth barrier. These hosts will be dropped if the situation does not improve within a certain time period.
Red, On A host was dropped due to a network error or bandwidth barrier timeout.
Blue, Flashing You have one or more incoming, outgoing, or automatic connections opened to a Gnutella service provider.

Special Gnutella service providers, like the Clip2 DSS Host List service, have continuously running computers systematically connecting to hosts in the Gnutella network in an effort to determine the topography of connections, measure the effective size of the network, and provide the IP addresses of well positioned hosts.

When BearShare is instructed to keep connections automatically, Service connections will be opened to these Gnutella service providers to initialize or update your supply of host addresses. If you allow incoming connections, and you have been connected to the Gnutella network for a sufficient length of time, you may briefly observe an incoming connection from a Gnutella service provider. All service connections are drawn in blue.

BearShare will allow incoming service connections even if you are at the limit of hosts you specify in the Hosts page, as long as you are accepting incoming connections. Search messages, search results, and ping messages are not routed to incoming service connections, to reduce traffic. If any type of service connection is indicated in the host list, the connection indicator will flash a bright blue as long as the service connection is active.

Search This is the Search indicator, and it shows the status of your searches. The possible states are:
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off You have no searches active.
Green, Flashing You have one or more active searches, and at least one search result has been returned.
Green, On New search results for one or more of your active search results are coming in.
Yellow, Flashing You have one or more active searches, and no search results have come in yet.
Download The Download indicator displays the current state of your downloads, if any. These are the displays:
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off You have no downloads active.
Green, Flashing One or more downloads have been started, but the incoming bandwidth for downloads is zero.
Green, On One or more downloads are receiving incoming data.
Yellow, Flashing One or more downloads are queued, waiting, or connected, but no transfer has been initiated.
Red, On A failure has occurred on one or more downloads that are connecting, requesting, or in progress.
Upload The Upload indicator shows you what is happening with your shared files. One of the following will be displayed:
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off There are no uploads active.
Green, Flashing One or more uploads have been started, but the FreePeers Agent is waiting for the remote hosts to receive the current blocks of file data before sending new blocks.
Green, On The FreePeers agent is sending new blocks of file data to one or more remote hosts.
Yellow, Flashing One or more upload connections are active, but no uploads have been started.
Red, On A failure has occurred on one or more uploads that are being accepted, connecting, responding, or in progress.
Monitor This indicator shows you what is happening with search results on your shared files, or the shared files of clients you are proxying. The Monitor indicator state can be one of the following:
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off You have no files to share, or you are not connected to the network.
Green, Flashing You are connected to the network and you are sharing files, or you are proxying shared files for other clients, but none of the incoming searches match the files.
Green, On Search results are being returned on one or more of your shared files, or the shared files of the clients you are proxying.
Yellow, On You shared directories are being scanned, or new files are being collected from clients you are proxying, or one of your proxied clients has disconnected and the FreePeers Agent is removing the cached file descriptors.
Red, On You are connected to the network, and one or more eligible files are in your shared directory, or you are proxying one or more shared files for a client, but your upload settings or network settings are preventing you from sharing the files.
Listener The Listener indicator shows you the status of your listening socket. The listening socket (TCP/IP parlance) is used to accept incoming connections, and is assigned the port number you configured in the Network Setup.
Gray The server is stopped.
Green, Off There is no listener active.
Green, On Your computer is listening for incoming connections.
Yellow, Flashing A security intrusion attempt against your computer was detected.
Red, Flashing There was a problem with the listener. The error is displayed in the hosts error list.

Listening to incoming connections is required for direct uploads, receiving a download by push, and accepting incoming host connections as peers or proxied clients.

A flashing yellow light indicates that the FreePeers agent has detected an incoming port scan, port probe, port strobe, or protocol vulnerability probe on your computer. This is quite common when you advertise your IP address using a peer to peer program like BearShare. Make sure you secure open ports and upgrade to the latest service packs of your operating system to prevent any vulnerabilities from being exploited.

Note: Currently, this intrusion detection feature is available only while running under Windows NT or Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and while BearShare is being run on a domain account with Administrator privileges.

If you are using an Internet connection, FreePeers recommends that you use a personal firewall product like ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs to protect your computer from attacks. If you would like to learn more about reducing your exposure to network attacks while running Windows, visit the Gibson Research Corporation.