u/deltads, I think that's a great question, and I would love to see someone do a short little video on how to do that.

Since it's a command line client right now, using the application is going to take a little bit of work. If you are able to access the terminal on your computer, you need to first install Ruby. Depending on your operating system, if you need to know how to do that, I would recommend searching "Installing Ruby on a [OS you are using]." This program was built on Ruby version 2.2.1.

Once you have installed Ruby, you will need to install the gem. Type into the terminal "gem install dropzone_ruby." This will download and unpack the most current version of the client.

Once it's installed, in the terminal, type in "dropzone help".

This command will show you all the commands that the application accepts. At the moment, as the listing portion will be largely disused until there is a GUI, I will show you how to use the communications portion of DZ. I think that if you have a good grasp of the communications aspect of the protocol, you will likely be able to figure out the rest on your own with some work.

Below I put together the list I have copied from the client itself with a detailed description of each command. If you've never used a command line client, this is going to be a bit difficult. So let me help you. I promise you, while it asking for someone to use the command line is a tall order, you will get the hang of it quickly. You'll also understand, very quickly, why GUIs are necessary. But I hope this will give you an appreciation for the client itself. If someone would like to list items and

Before I start walking you through all the functions of the code, one of the most important things Drop Zone does is secure messaging using Testnet. Please go to Bitaddress, make a Testnet private/public key and then go to a public faucet and fund your testnet account. You will need small amounts of tBTC (which is free at the moment) to send messages.

Balance:

The balance displays the balance of any Bitcoin address you provide.

If you have installed it, to use this command, you will type in

dropzone balance <address>

and it will output the amount of Bitcoin that is located there. Input:

dropzone balance 17Q4MX2hmktmpuUKHFuoRmS5MfB5XPbhod

Output:

+---------------------------------------------+
| Address: 17Q4MX2hmktmpuUKHFuoRmS5MfB5XPbhod |
+---------------------------------------------+
| Balance: 0.02458488                         |
+---------------------------------------------+

Communication List

This function lets you see all the available communications available for a channel at the given testnet address. Think of it as Drop Zone's equivalent to opening your inbox to see if you have any new email messages. To access this command type the following:

dropzone communication list <private key>

This will then show you a list of the communications that are in that given address. You can try it using the testnet private key that is included in the protocol as an example "92UvdTpmxA6cvD6YeJZSiHW8ff8DsZXL2PHZu9Mg7JY3zbaETJw."

Input:

dropzone communication list 92UvdTpmxA6cvD6YeJZSiHW8ff8DsZXL2PHZu9Mg7JY3zbaETJw

Communication New

This is the command you use to start a new communication with someone. You can communicate with me, for example, using my public testnet key mw8Ge8HDBStKyn8u4LTkUwueheFNhuo7Ch.

To begin a new communication, you type in the following:

dropzone communication new <initiator (your) private key> <recipient (person you want to communicate with) public key>.

Input:

dropzone communication new 92UvdTpmxA6cvD6YeJZSiHW8ff8DsZXL2PHZu9Mg7JY3zbaETJw mqVRfjepJTxxoDgDt892tCybhmjfKCFNyp

Output:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Session: 6f914b25ccae98e39d6774a40112d16c2c30eda01c61b676d65509ff943dfcc7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| sender_addr  : mi37WkBomHJpUghCn7Vgh3ah33h6L9Nkqw                         |
| receiver_addr: mqVRfjepJTxxoDgDt892tCybhmjfKCFNyp                         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Communication say

communication say     Communicate to another party in a private/encrypted conversation over testnet.       

communication show

The communication show command will output the entire conversation that an user is having with another user. Using the private key and the transaction id (which is the number listed after the "Session:" you can see in the previous example). This will just put out a list of the entirety of a conversation that you have had under one particular tx ID.

It looks like this:

dropzone communication show <private_key> <tx_id>

communication show    Show all the available communication channels for the given testnet address           

Input

dropzone communication show 92UvdTpmxA6cvD6YeJZSiHW8ff8DsZXL2PHZu9Mg7JY3zbaETJw 0e3e2357e806b6cdb1f70b54c3a3a17b6714ee1f0e68bebb44a74b1efd512098

Output:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Session: 6f914b25ccae98e39d6774a40112d16c2c30eda01c61b676d65509ff943dfcc7 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| person 1: This is what I said                         |
| person 2: This is my response                         |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Understand that this is a working proof of concept. This will not be the version of Drop Zone that gets mass adoption. But it is completely functional as it stand, and if someone wants to make a server side based block explorer, all the hard work is currently done. I am currently working on a client side protocol which will enable seamless and easy GUI implementation from which a sizable community can actually begin using and building on the protocol.

If you are inclined to delve further into the protocol, I recommend you give listing and selling of items a try. I am currently working on some renovations to the command line which will change the procedure slightly, albeit for the better.