In addition to the wallet client provided by Silent-Vault, there are three other older clients which were written as part of the Voucher-Safe Project. These clients do not support the integrated Exchange functionality which has been added by Silent-Vault. However, they are equally good for all the basic wallet operations, and two of them offer unique features.
The Voucher-Safe WebApp Client
This original wallet client can be downloaded from Voucher-Safe.com. Just click on the "Get Started" button. There are also tutorial videos describing installation and various basic wallet operations.
The Spark Plugin Client
Spark is a popular open source Jabber (XMPP) client which features a plugin architecture and a large number of nifty features, including OTR (off-the-record encyrpted chat). A Spark plugin providing V-S wallet functionality in a separate tab is available. This plugin adds the same capabilities that are provided by the regular Java WebApp client (see above). However, it can also useful to be able to chat with the people you are doing business with, so for those who do not mind using the wallet functionality inside a larger context, the Spark plugin client may be desirable.
To install Spark and the Voucher-Safe Client plugin for it, you will need to perform the following steps:
- First, you'll need version 6 or 7 of the Java runtime on your computer. See recommendations here.
- Next, you'll need to install Spark 2.6.3, which can be obtained from igniterealtime.org. If you already have the Java JRE installed, select a download which does not bundle it with Spark. Run the Spark installer (Windows), or unpack the tarball (Linux). Start Spark once to verify the install, and automatically create your Spark user directory.
- Then you will need two files from the voucher-safe.org site: voucher-safe.jar and xpp3.jar. The first is the plugin itself; the second is a standard open source utility library which parses XML for certain messages. The voucher-safe.jar file is signed by the project developer key, and you can (and should) verify this by running:
jarsigner -verfy voucher-safe.jar
- Place the xpp3.jar library file into the 'lib' directory where you installed Spark, e.g. C:\Program Files\Spark\lib.
- Copy the voucher-safe.jar file into the plugins directory. You may do this either within the Spark installation (i.e. Spark\plugins), or in your local user directory where application data is stored. (On Linux/Mac this will be in ~/.Spark/plugins. On Windows it will be something like C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Spark\plugins. Note that the Spark user directory is created the first time you start Spark.)
- Start up Spark. If you do not have a Jabber login, you will need to create one. You can do this by clicking on the Accounts button at the bottom left. Enter your desired username and password, and enter ofs.vm.to for the server.
- Next, click on the Advanced button at the bottom. Uncheck the automatic discovery box and enter Host ofs.vm.to and Port 5233. You may enable compression if you wish. Click OK.
- Enter your username, password, and server ofs.vm.to, and click Login. After a few moments, you should see a third tab appear labeled "Voucher-Safe Login," together with a Voucher-Safe menu item in the menu bar at the top. Your wallet runs in this tab and uses this menu. Click on the tab to switch the screen. Log into your wallet as you normally would. Note that you can log in and out of wallets without logging out of the Jabber server.
- Your Preferences are controlled from the top menu via Spark/Preferences/Voucher-Safe. Many other generic Spark preferences can also be configured.
- If you are on Windows, we suggest that under Appearance, you select Nimbus as your Look and Feel, because that is the L&F for which the WebApp client was written, and this will make the look consistent if you use both clients.
Note that these instructions will take you to the test network (ofs.vm.to). To access the live network, you will need to replace this with ofs.silentvault.com or pks.vm.to (the port remains 5233). If you have trouble connecting, try hitting http://silentvault.com in your browser first.
The CLI (Command Line Interface) Client
A V-S wallet can also be driven from a command line interface. While one might wonder why a shell command line would be used in this day of ubiquitous GUI interfaces, the answer is that GUIs can be built on top of textual interfaces. This is exactly what the Bitcoin-Qt client does; internally it is sending textual commands to a parser based on this command set. Don't much like our GUI and want to write your own? This would be one way to do it.
Note that the CLI does provide one additional piece of functionality: the ability to perform "batch" payments to a list of recipients as described in a text file listing payees and amounts. You can download the CLI client here. Make sure to verify its signature using:jarsigner -verify voucher-cli.jarTo run it, use:
java -jar voucher-cli.jar
The manual page for the CLI is found here.