diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+++ b/README.md
@@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ I'm really proud of this, its not clean but I feel like its a project I set myse
 
 Find the site at [www.rosia.me](https://rosia.me) and a blog post about its creation [here](https://www.rosia.me/ThisSite.html)
 
+Also! if you want to use this program, find usage in usage.md! Drop me a message if you do use this program, Id love an excuse to clean it up a bit
+
 
 ## TODOs
 - [ ] add a "latest change" section to the front page
@@ -20,3 +22,4 @@ Find the site at [www.rosia.me](https://rosia.me) and a blog post about its crea
 - [ ] top-line parameters with values
   - [ ] the ability to add a css class to the menu label of a page
 - [x] rss support
+- [ ] the ability to set a html template through an argument
diff --git a/usage.md b/usage.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+
+# Overview
+Program takes in .md files and a few template html files, will then convert md to html and put it into the templates. 
+Pages can each take settings to change how they're processed. Worth noting: this program doesnt host files, just generate them, 
+I use lighttpd to do the actual hosting, a bit more on this is dotted around below too.
+
+# Disclaimers
+There are way better softwares to use than this (all of which do the hosting for you, unlike mine) I mostly made it as a fun 
+challenge and to try make the software as lightweight as possible, example alternatives are:
+- jekyll, made in ruby, heavy but really powerful, github websites use it,
+- ikiwiki, permacomputing project, identical to mine but more stable and generally better designed I imagine
+
+If you do use this, let me know and I'll try clean some of it up a bit! We can work on it together :)
+
+# Basic use
+
+## Setup
+You might need to read the rest then come back to this
+- clone the repo
+- build using cmake (see below)
+- install lighttpd, my program builds the pages, lighttpd will actually host them, it just checks a folder of files and
+hosts any files in there
+- set up a script that runs the program every so often to make sure the pages are up to date (or manually run it after
+pushing, thats what I do)
+
+## Building the command
+- In the repo make a directory called "build"
+- cd into it
+- run ``cmake ..``
+- run ``cmake --build .``
+- in the build folder, under src there should now be a file called "blog", this is the program
+
+## Running the command
+I run the program from a script that does this:
+``./blog -out="/var/www/localhost/htdocs" -in="/root/BlogPosts/posts" -static="/root/BlogPosts/static" -url="https://rosia.me"``
+- out sets the directory to put the html files in, in my case, its the folder lighttpd uses
+- in sets where the md files are read from, this __this folder can have sub folders and that will be reflected in the nav bar__
+- static takes a directory full of random files that dont need converting but should still be in the out folder,
+e.g. images or pdf files or illegal music you want to host [not like this](https://www.rosia.me/leon-rosselson/)
+or [like this](https://www.rosia.me/traps-and-lessons/), I think static respects nested folders, but cant remember lol
+- url takes your pages url, this is used by the program to generate an rss feed which at certain points will want to state its url
+
+## Setting the templates
+Firstly, what are the templates? This program converts md into html, but that only gives us the html for the text, we need the 
+html for how the rest of the page looks outside of the blog posts individual text. This is what the template is. 
+The program processes the template by looking for the first <article></article> tag and putting the md files html inside it. 
+It also looks for the first <nav></nav> tags and puts the websites navbar in there!
+
+Insanity reins free in my code. Due to this, the html templates location is hardcoded in the codebase, so to make your own 
+templates you'll need to put them in ``Resources/Templates`` in the codebases repo, I should fix this.
+
+## File settings
+Individual md files can have settings! The first line of any text file is for its settings, so __always leave the first line of a md file blank__.
+Settings come in the form of single characters, at the moment the only two are:
+- `P` to hide a page, this means it will still be hosted but wont be shown on the websites navbar. An of this would be [my quotes page](https://www.rosia.me/Quotes.html) 
+- `p` to make a page as hidable, this means its on the nav bar, but if you have an employer looking at your site soon, you can run the program with the `-hide` argument and it will hide all those pages till you regenerate them
+
+So an md file might look like this:
+
+```
+P
+# this is the title of a private file
+only people with the url to this can see it
+```
+