[IceCube_2]

Hello everyone,

Been a long time since I poked around on these forums, but I thought I'd post this here for the purposes of feedback. I am currently working on starting up a new file-sharing news website. One of the features I am currently building is a section of how-to guides on file-sharing programs. I selected eMule as a featured program: http://www.freezenet...networks-emule/

This is supposed to be a beginners guide to get new users started on using the program. While a bit in-depth, I wanted to tackle a few aspects of eMule that new users might need to know about at the very beginning. Some of this is based on my personal experience with eMule as well.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, the information is accurate, but if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I am open to hearing it.

- IceCube

[Zangune]

Some suggestions.

The guide is too long, it should be shortened.

You may add during installer people have not to change any option because people tends to mess up things in 'Decide how to share eMule with other users'.
So many times I found Windows Vista-and-newer users have their Temp config under the Program Files folder.

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The ED2K network has been around since at least 2002 and is still in use today.

You can avoid to guess, click

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The Donkey is Born :: 09.06.00

You can skip the username part, nobody cares about.

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Having eMule load up on startup can cause startup times to increase.

This is a bit misleading, eMule is a lightweight program.
Start up time is not a real problem, anyway is good to let users decide when to start a program.

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The second tickbox is left unchecked because we want to safely connect to the network. This can be changed after, but for now, it is strongly advised you leave this unticked for now.

Always eMule safely connects to the networks.

In the 'Configure Your Ports' paragraph you forgot to mention UPnP.
UPnP is the way for new users, it is the headache free way to setup their routers.

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If you don't know how to forward your ports on Windows 7, you can read through this guide on how to do so.

Ports need to be forwarded in the users routers, not Windows.
At first eMule startup a firewall should ask the user to allow eMule, user have to allow eMule and that's enough.

The static IP part may be skipped becausee of IPs conflicts.
If the user owns a tower computer or a laptop that is always placed at home then it's safe to setup a static IP and anyway the static IP have to be choosen between non DHCP managed IPs.
Example: 192.168.0.99 in this router


The way to go should be address reservation, example



A side note: you don't need to hide any data in your local network (Windows Sevens static IP guide)

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I haven't had problems with eMule connecting to the network while leaving this unticked.

This tick is not intended to deny users to connect to a network.
If you untick a network here and you click Connect in the upper left corner in eMule then eMule will connect to the ticked network only.

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For new users, it is impossible to tell which server is safe to connect to and which is not. So, we want to remove any possible fake servers from our list.

This is misleading.
eMule default serverslist is outdated, but there is any fake server here.

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right click on any of the servers and click "Add to Static List".

So bad.
Servers are few so serverslists changes very slowly.
For a newbie a static server may be a problem because that newbie tends to forget how to remove servers from static servers and because of this

// connected to both
// We choose Kad, except
// - if we are connected to a static server

in \eMule0.50a-Sources\srchybrid\SearchResultsWnd.cpp lines 1203-1205.

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Make sure "Autoconnect to servers in static list only" is ticked.

Even worse.
This is the way users won't connect to any server and come here asking why, example.

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When done, click "Apply", then "OK".

Trivial: Apply is not needed.
'OK' means 'apply and then close', 'Cancel' means 'discard and close'.

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This may take a moment, but the Contacts window will fill up with peers. While eMule is attempting to connect to the network, you may notice thta you are initially firewalled.

Typo: is 'that' not thta.

Maybe I will continue (now I have to go).

[IceCube_2]

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

Some suggestions.

You can avoid to guess, click

I actually spent time Googling for that and my Google-fu failed me. Thanks for the link. Added.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

You can skip the username part, nobody cares about.

This is a bit misleading, eMule is a lightweight program.
Start up time is not a real problem, anyway is good to let users decide when to start a program.

Any program (whether lightweight or not) will increase start times if it's added to a list of programs on boot, but I did add "by a second or so" so as to avoid being misleading.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

Always eMule safely connects to the networks.

I read this paragraph again and decided to axe the last sentence due to redundancy.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

In the 'Configure Your Ports' paragraph you forgot to mention UPnP.
UPnP is the way for new users, it is the headache free way to setup their routers.


Ports need to be forwarded in the users routers, not Windows.
At first eMule startup a firewall should ask the user to allow eMule, user have to allow eMule and that's enough.

The linked to guide shows users who are on Windows 7 how to set up a static IP address. I explicitly mention Windows 7 because different Windows OS's annoyingly have different locations for options related to port forwarding. An example is Windows 7 has a network and sharing center, but, to my knowledge, an older OS has these options elsewhere.

Added note about uPnP.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

The static IP part may be skipped becausee of IPs conflicts.
If the user owns a tower computer or a laptop that is always placed at home then it's safe to setup a static IP and anyway the static IP have to be choosen between non DHCP managed IPs.
Example: 192.168.0.99 in this router


The way to go should be address reservation, example



A side note: you don't need to hide any data in your local network (Windows Sevens static IP guide)

Good point! Added a note about taking a computer system to another network.

Some of the content on the other guide was hidden so that only the option needed would be better highlighted. I kind of since ditched the idea since the circles are sufficient, but didn't bother going back and fixing up all the images after I made that decision.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

This tick is not intended to deny users to connect to a network.
If you untick a network here and you click Connect in the upper left corner in eMule then eMule will connect to the ticked network only.

Deleted last two sentences.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

This is misleading.
eMule default serverslist is outdated, but there is any fake server here.

Changed to saying that they are outdated. Thought I remembered seeing a fake server wind up on there but I can't say for certain now if it was because of the default or if it was the result of eMule finding new servers now.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

So bad.
Servers are few so serverslists changes very slowly.
For a newbie a static server may be a problem because that newbie tends to forget how to remove servers from static servers and because of this

// connected to both
// We choose Kad, except
// - if we are connected to a static server

in \eMule0.50a-Sources\srchybrid\SearchResultsWnd.cpp lines 1203-1205.


Even worse.
This is the way users won't connect to any server and come here asking why, example.

This has only happened to me once, but as a result of a local network issue. I've added a question in the FAQ about this that directs the user to re-add the server.met file and adding new servers to the static list while noting the possible reason for this.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

Trivial: Apply is not needed.
'OK' means 'apply and then close', 'Cancel' means 'discard and close'.

Reworded. Likely put in there in the first place as a result of having to deal with far more annoying programs and eMule isn't one of them.

Zangune, on 14 September 2014 - 03:26 AM, said:

Typo: is 'that' not thta.

Maybe I will continue (now I have to go).

Good catch! Fixed. A good rule for writing is that a typo is extremely obvious to everyone but the person writing it. It's such an annoyingly true rule. Thought I quashed all of the typos, but that one seemed to slip through anyway. XD

Thanks for all of your help so far. Writing guides for vastly different programs and protocols isn't easy as small details like that can be overlooked.

Edit: Removed a number of blockquotes as there's a limit.

[niRRity]

Good job dude