OverSite by MollieSoft - Frequently Asked Questions
	- Updated July 13, 2023 for Version 1.2.5.0.

What is OverSite?
	- OverSite is a FREE utility from MollieSoft that monitors websites and shows an up/down timeline.
	- You can use OverSite to track when your internet connection was up/down, by monitoring well-known sites.
	- OverSite can send you an email when a site goes up/down!
	- Monitor the IP address of an individual computer within your router to track when it is awake or asleep.
	- OverSite uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ping), a lightweight mechanism to determine if a website or local computer is up/down.

How do I install OverSite?
	- Go to www.molliesoft.com/OverSite to download the install package.  You will need administrator privileges on your machine to perform the install.

What operating systems will run OverSite?
	- OverSite runs on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.
	- OverSite requires the Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.6.1 to run.  This should normally already be present; if the OverSite installation process detects it is not installed, go to
	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49981
and install it.

How do I run OverSite?
	- The install process will place a shortcut to OverSite in your Startup folder, so it will start when you log on to your computer.
	- OverSite should always be kept running so that it can track websites for you; just minimize it to the system tray instead of closing OverSite.
	- The install process also places a separate shortcut to OverSite on your desktop, so that you can start OverSite manually.

I clicked the "Minimize" button (on the upper right of OverSite); where did it go?  
	- When minimized, the OverSite icon will appear in the System Tray (normally at the bottom right of the desktop).  If you do not see it there, click the small up-arrow in the tray marked "Show hidden icons".  Just double-click the tray icon to show OverSite in a normal window again.  Note that Windows lets you customize the System Tray to make the OverSite icon stay in the visible portion of the tray if desired.  You can also use the OverSite desktop shortcut to make OverSite appear on the screen again.

How can I learn more about how OverSite works?
	- This FAQ is the main source of information about OverSite.
	- Please email support@molliesoft.com with any questions that the documentation does not address.

Site Watchers and Sites

Why does OverSite have an "Internet" site watcher when it starts up for the first time?
	- Most people will want to use OverSite simply to monitor when their internet connection is up/down.  For convenience, OverSite creates the "Internet" site watcher automatically the first time it is run.
	- By default, the Internet site watcher monitors certain sites that are almost always available, and that accept pings:
•	www.google.com
•	www.microsoft.com
•	www.yahoo.com
•	8.8.8.8 (the Google public DNS server)
	- The Internet site watcher has no special status, and you may add sites to it, remove sites, or edit it in any way you wish.

What sites can be monitored by an OverSite site watcher?
	- The site must be a host name or an IP address, such as www.google.com or 8.8.8.8.
	- The site must be pingable.  Some site firewalls block ping packets.
	- The dialog box used to add/edit a site contains a "Ping Test" button that you can use for a quick test.
	- The site cannot start with "http://" or "https://".  Just use the bare domain name.
	- You cannot ping a specific port since this is not allowed by the ping (ICMP) protocol.

What information is shown in the timeline graph?
	- The graph represents the up/down times of the site watcher that is currently selected in the site watchers list.  You can click on a site watcher or on any of its sites to show the site watcher timeline.
	- As indicated by the graph legend, the bars show periods when:
•	The computer was sleeping (or hibernating).
•	OverSite was not running (unknown state).
•	The required number of sites responded to pings (sites up).
•	There were not enough ping responses (sites down).
•	The site watcher was disabled.
	- Every time you change a site watcher (e.g. add/remove sites) this generates a new bar segment; the tooltip on each bar segment shows the state of the site watcher for the time period represented by the bar.
	- You can show/hide the graph legend using the "Graph legend" checkbox.
	- You can show 1-10 days of information in the graph using the "Days" selection box.  These settings are remembered, so you will see the same graph settings the next time you start OverSite.
	- When "Live" is checked, the graph always shows today, and the specified number of past days.  Uncheck the "Live" checkbox then use the date control to display the selected site watcher over an earlier time period.
	- When "Live" is checked, the timeline graph will automatically be updated as sites are pinged.

Is there some way to save the information in the timeline graph to a file?
	- Use the "Export" button at the top right of the graph to export all the transitions of the selected site watcher to a "comma separated values" (.csv) file, suitable for import into Microsoft Excel.
	- This will produce a file with one line per site transition segment, including the start/end times of the transition, the transition type (Sites Up, Sites Down, Disabled, Sleeping, Unknown, Awake) and some supplementary details.

Why does a Site Watcher contain multiple site addresses?
	- A site watcher is considered "up" if a specified minimum required number of its sites respond to pings.  This is most useful in the case of the "Internet" watcher, which is up if at least one of its sites respond.
	- For example, you can create a site watcher with 10 sites that is considered "up" only if all 10 sites respond, or create a watcher that is "up" if only one of its sites respond.
	- There is no limit to the number of sites that can be added to a site watcher, but the same site cannot occur twice in the same site watcher.

How do I "turn off" a Site Watcher temporarily?
	- Click the "Enabled" checkbox of a site in the Site Watchers list to turn a specific site on/off.  If you disable a site, it will not be pinged.
	- Click the "Enabled" checkbox of the site watcher itself to enable/disable all the sites contained in the site watcher.

Could an evil person use OverSite to flood a site with pings?
	- OverSite has safeguards to prevent this sort of annoyance.
	- Sites are pinged every minute only.  You cannot change this rate.
	- Each ping is only 40 bytes.
	- You cannot add a site to more than 5 site watchers, so a single site cannot be pinged too frequently.

Notifications

What are "notify rules"?
	- The "notify rules" govern how you will be informed when a site watcher (or an individual site within a watcher) transitions from up to down, or down to up.
	- Note: Version 1.2.5.0 of OverSite treats Notify Rules somewhat differently from prior versions.  If you are upgrading from a prior version, please open the Notify Dialog for each Site Watcher with Notify Rules and select the correct Rules Usage option.

How do I set up notify rules?
	- You can set up default notify rules using the Notify button in the OverSite settings dialog.  To use these rule for a particular site or site watcher, click the Notify button while the site or site watcher is selected in the main list, then pick the Rules Usage option "Default rules" at the top of the dialog.
	- You can set up custom notify rules for any site watcher or site using the Notify button on the main window while the site watcher or site is selected in the main list.  In the Notify dialog, pick the Rules Usage option "My rules".
	- When you add a new site Watcher or site, initially no notify rules are in effect.  You must open the Notify dialog and pick either the default rules or create custom rules ("My rules") for the site watcher or site.
	- If you choose to set up notify rules for an individual site, these are completely independent of the rules for the containing site watcher.  Normally, you should just use the default rules defined in settings, or define custom rules for a specific site watcher; rules for an individual site within a watcher should not be needed.

What is a "site transition"?
	A site transition occurs when a site was up then goes down, or was down then goes up.  However, this can potentially occur every minute and you may not wish to be notified every time this happens.  You can specify smoothing (tolerance) thresholds for both up-to-down and down-to-up transitions using the "Edit Notify Rules" dialog.
•	To generate a notification for an up-to-down transition, you can require that the site has been up for at least x minutes before being down for at least y minutes. (x and y must each be between 0 and 1000 minutes.)
•	To generate a notification for a down-to-up transition, you can require that the site has been down for at least x minutes before being up for at least y minutes.

What sort of notification can I use?
	- Notifications can be any or all of four types:
•	Write an entry in the OverSite history log.
•	Show a Windows notification via the System Tray.  On Windows 8.1, this will show as a pop-up; on Windows 10, as an entry in the notification sidebar.  Windows 10 maintains a history of notifications, but Windows 8.1 does not.
•	Play a sound.  You can use the built-in OverSite sounds for up/down, or select any WAV file to play.  Note that these sound notifications are not disabled when you turn off "enable sounds" in the OverSite Settings dialog.
•	Send a predefined short email to a list of recipients.

How do I tell OverSite what email server to use for sending notifications?
	- In addition to the recipient addresses, you must also specify the email server settings used to send the email: the server name, port number, account name and password.
	- Set up the email server using the "From:" button in the Notify Rules dialog, then press the "Test" button to send a test email.
	- Note: any email passwords you enter via OverSite are securely encrypted and will never be visible on-screen.

My email never gets sent!  What's going on?
	- Some email servers (notably gmail) require a special password to be used when the email account is used to send emails programmatically in this way.  For gmail, you must turn on 2-step verification, then generate an "app password" for Windows computers. Go to https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833?hl=en#zippy= and read the section "Create & use app passwords".  Now enter the "From:" server settings in OverSite as: Server = "smtp.gmail.com", address = "<your-user-name>@gmail.com", password = <generated-app-password>.
	- OverSite cannot send an email notification that the "Internet" site watcher is down, since sending the email will fail.

Can I send a text (SMS) message to my phone to tell me when a site is up/down?
	- You can send a notification as an SMS text message to a phone by sending an email to a special recipient address consisting of the phone number and phone provider SMS server (gateway) name.  For example, if you want to send a text message to the T-Mobile phone number "(111) 555-1212", the recipient email address would be 1115551212@tmomail.net.  Determining the SMS server to use for your specific cellular provider may require a bit of research.  Try the links below for a list of the email SMS server names to use for specific phone providers:
		https://avtech.com/articles/138/list-of-email-to-sms-addresses/
		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateway
		https://github.com/mfitzp/List_of_SMS_gateways/blob/master/legacy.md

I'm being bombarded with notifications!  How can I turn them off?
	- You can disable the notify rules for an individual site or site watcher by selecting the option "No rules" in the Notify dialog.  Any custom rules you have defined will be retained in case you want to go back to the "My rules" option.  You can get rid of the custom rules permanently using the "Clear all" button at the bottom of the Notify dialog.
	- The default notify rules in the Settings dialog have no effect unless you have explicitly selected "Default rules" for a particular site watcher or site.

When my internet connection goes down, I get lots of notifications about other site watchers being down as well.  All I really want is a single notification that the internet is down!
	- You can accomplish this by making your other site watchers "depend on" the Internet watcher, as explained below.
	- Some site watchers logically cannot be "up" unless a site watcher they depend on is also "up".  Examples:
•	A site watcher that watches a particular internet site (e.g. facebook.com) will never be up if the Internet site watcher is down.
•	If you have a router, a site watcher that watches a local computer (e.g. 192.168.1.15) will never be up if you cannot ping the router (e.g. 192.168.1.1) successfully, since your connection to another computer depends on the router.
•	If you have a router, the Internet site watcher cannot be up if the router is down, since your connection to the internet depends on the router.
	- Since a Facebook site watcher logically depends on Internet, it is pointless to notify that Facebook is down when Internet is down also.  This would be a meaningless notification, since the state of Facebook is not actually known (Internet being down).  To minimize spurious notifications of this sort, you can specify that the Facebook site watcher "depends on" the Internet site watcher.  In the Notify dialog for the Facebook watcher, select "Internet" from the "Depends on" drop-down list and press OK.  Now you will not get any notification about Facebook being down if the Internet watcher is down also.
	- You can easily see whether one site watcher depends on another by hovering the mouse over the site watcher name in the main window watcher list.  If the site watcher depends on e.g. Internet, you will see this as a tooltip.
	- When setting up these dependencies, remember that when you use the Notify button on the main window, you are editing the notification rules for the current selection in the main site watchers list (either a site or a site watcher).  If a site watcher is selected, you are editing its notification rules; if a SITE is selected, you are editing the notification rules for this site ALONE and the containing site watcher is not involved.
	- The notify rules accessible from the Settings dialog are default rules that you can use for any site watcher or site if desired.  Since no specific site watcher or site is involved, when you edit the default settings you will not see the "Depends on" controls in the notify dialog.

How do I set up notify rules for ALL my site watchers at once?
	- If you have many site watchers, you may want to specify default notify rules via the OverSite Settings dialog.  Use the "Notify" button in the Settings dialog to specify the default up-to-down and down-to-up transition rules to be used for any site watcher (or site) whose rules usage is set to "Default rules".  This provides a convenient way to set up notify rules for all your site watchers, while allowing you to override these global rules for specific site watchers.

What's the relationship between notify rules for a site watcher and the rules for its contained sites?
	- There is none!
	- The notify rules for a site watcher are completely independent of any notify rules you specify for the specific sites within the site watcher.
	- Remember that a site watcher may only require some of the contained sites to be "up" for the site watcher to be considered "up", so the site transitions for a site watcher will differ from the site transitions for the contained sites.  Of course, the timeline graph only shows transitions for site watchers, not individual sites.

I'm not hearing all the notification sounds I expected.  Why not?
	- For a given ping period (once per minute) only the first notification sound will play to prevent "auditory chaos".  However any other notifications (history log, tray notification, emails) will be delivered exactly as specified.

Splash Screen

What does the splash screen show?
	- OverSite version information.
	- License validation.
	- The elapsed time for initialization of the program.

The splash screen is annoying!  Can I turn it off?
	- MollieSoft is deeply sorry that you do not appreciate our beautiful splash screen.  However, to mollify the occasional customer with a distaste for splash screens, we have provided a check box in the "Settings" dialog that you can use to turn the splash screen off.

Miscellaneous

The text in OverSite is too small for me to read comfortably; is there a way to make it bigger?
	- Yes; press the key combination Control+Numpad-PLUS to step the font size up, and Control+Numpad-MINUS to step it back down.  That is, hold down the Control key while pressing "+" or "-" on the numeric keypad.
	- There are four step sizes: small, medium, large, and extra large.  (These correspond to the Windows font point sizes 8.25, 9, 9.75, and 10.25 respectively.)
	- Of course, increasing the font size will make all the views and dialogs correspondingly larger, and decreasing it will make them smaller.
	- The new font size will be remembered whenever you re-open a view or dialog, or restart OverSite.
	- You can also set the font size using the Settings dialog.  Select the appropriate font-size radio button (small, medium, large, extra large); the new font size will be applied once you press OK.

What is the History Log?
	- Every time OverSite is started, a new History Log file is created in the directory 
		%localappdata%\OverSite\Logs.
(Just type the preceding into a Windows Explorer navigation bar to display the contents of this directory, or press the button "Explore Logs" above the History Log text area.)  The files are named using the format
		 OverSiteLog.YYYYMMDD_hhmmss.log,
e.g. OverSiteLog.20190417_143932.log is the file created 2019/04/17 at 14:39.  These files contain diagnostic information relevant to the operation of OverSite, and can be opened with Notepad.
	- The current history log entries are displayed in the OverSite History View.  Click the History Log button at the top of the OverSite main window to display it.
	- At startup, the History Log will display the current OverSite version, license information, and any errors encountered.
	- The History Log shows when OverSite started or ended.
	- The "Explore Logs" button at the top right of History Log will open a Windows Explorer and navigate to the logs directory.

What else is in %localappdata%\OverSite?
	- This directory contains your license information.
	- The "Config" subdirectory contains OverSite configuration files, which hold various OverSite program and user settings.
	- The "Logs" subdirectory contains OverSite log files, one per OverSite run (the current log file is what is shown in the History Log).
	- Never modify any file in this directory or any subdirectory, or the results will be "unpredictable".

What happens if I minimize OverSite?
	- When minimized, OverSite is only visible as an icon in the System Tray area.  Double-click the tray icon to restore the window.
	- If you close OverSite while minimized (using "Exit" on the right-click menu available on the tray icon), OverSite will remember that you prefer to start it minimized.
	- You can use the checkbox "Start minimized" in the Settings dialog to always start OverSite minimized to the system tray if desired.

Where do I send comments or suggestions about OverSite?
	- Email comments or suggestions to:
		support@molliesoft.com or molliesoft@comcast.net.
	- If you find OverSite to be a useful program, please leave a short review at:
		https://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Other-Internet-Related/OverSite-MollieSoft.shtml
		(You will have to click "Load Comments" at the bottom of the page to log in and leave your comments.)