I just wanted to note that
newbies, especially, can and should go to the testnet section and download a testnet wallet to play with. You can get coins at the faucet, mine in your wallet (please, no heavy hashing, it messes up the block generation when people stop and leave us with a high difficulty) and learn all there is to learn. If you decide to create some kind of file system for yourself, or use up tons of keys, and forget to save your wallet, well, it'll only be test-Dash you lost!
You can also explore things and "spend" tDash over and over without losing any real funds. Try out Private Send, and Instant Send until you feel 200% comfortable with the system. Practice getting information on the command line, become a pro! A list of commands are always available with the --help command!
In the mean time, if you try out something "wrong" and screw up the whole network, you will have done us a great favor! And I'm the Queen of stupid questions, but if you want to challenge me, I promise to be friendly (and everyone else is very friendly there) and I'll help any time I see a question (it just can take a few hours sometimes
)
Have fun!
How do you know if it's testnet? (or how do you make it a testnet wallet?) All you do is open up your dash.conf file (the one in your /appdata/roaming/dash folder (different for different operating systems) and include the line: testnet=1 It will create a new folder in there called testnet3 and that folder looks just like your appdata/roaming/dash folder only it uses test dash. You never need a dash.conf file in there, only a masternode.conf file. All other changes you may want to make in your dash.conf file, you do in the main one in the main dash folder. When you start your test wallet, it should be an orange startup screen instead of blue, but the wallet has normal graphics.
Of course, if you want to run a testnet masternode, you will need to add other information to your dash.conf file. It's just like any other dash.conf file that runs a masternode except you will use the port number 19999 and that is the same for any addnodes you may want to include.
In the future, Dash will have a pretty idiot proof wallet system that is as easy to use as PayPal, but by joining us and learning the inner workings of the wallet, you will also learn about the inner workings of Dash while the technology advances. And tDash is always open, even when no testing is going on. So don't be shy! Comon in, the water's warm!
This invitation is more for you the user, because it's really a great way to get your feet wet with this technology without the fear. Sometimes the big boys will seem to "ignore" you but that's because they're concentrating on heavy stuff. I think that testnet has turned into something where everyone helps each other out, but when we get stumped, if there is a real problem, we call it to the attention of a developer, like flare or something. Those "big boys" are always talking on slack anyway, so don't fear cluttering up the testnet forum (
https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/v12-1-testnet-launch-thread.9014/page-18#post-96421 ) because I'm mostly alone in there, and I definitely don't bite. I always have more questions than answers there too
So join me!!! Lets learn together!