SAFE Network - DevHub: Feedback area

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Hi all,
I’ve created this topic to provide an area where you can feedback any suggestions you may have for improving the new SAFE Network - DevHub. We’re working on making it as good as it can be and we’d like your input.

Please feel free to suggest anything (within reason :face_with_raised_eyebrow:) but please have a little read of any existing suggestions first to avoid duplication. I’m not going to say that we’ll implement everything but we’ll certainly consider all reasonable ideas.

Thanks,
David.

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Not sure who the designer was, but after a quick scan all I can for now say is that the look, format, and aesthetics are clean and very well done / professional. I like it.

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I have a few suggestions, but not a lot of time at the moment. Next few days though hopefully.

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hmhmmm - i would love to have a link to the newest peruse release on the front page …

…i literally just spent ~5 minutes looking for the right link to the latest version (okay - a laggy internet did slow me down a bit too … but still … i do exactly know what i’m looking for … new people won’t …) … on maidsafe.net there is just the safe browser linked and in this forum there are a lot of mentions of peruse but it’s not always linked …

ps: Safe Network - DevHub there is the browser linked too (doesn’t peruse already support features the safe-browser doesn’t? - what’s the motivation?)

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First I should say that I think the existing lesson is very good, and most ‘real’ devs would not find too many problems, but for us lesser mortals, there are still a few pitfalls.

So first, how about providing a simple ‘hello world’ type example as suggested in this thread?

Second, it would be helpful to beginners for the tutorial to be a little more instructional. There are lots of places where mistakes can be made, an obvious one being a failure to set the NODE_ENV to dev in the correct consoles (easily done if you start the browser from the file manager rather than the CLI too…). Also, there is the ever-present problem with node and npm versions, with different Linux distros seemingly having different requirements. Some of these issues could be avoided by spelling out the procedure and noting down where errors might occur.

For the SAFE Desktop App Tutorial, after a beefed up prerequisites section, I would suggest something like this (these are only partial instructions obviously):

Open three console windows or tabs in the folder where you want to build the app (e.g. /home/user in Linux ).

Download SAFE Browser Mock Routing zip file into that folder and unzip to extract the contents. We now need to do three different operations, one from each of the consoles.

Console 1
Start the browser and set up an account.

First set the node environment to dev:
$ export NODE_ENV=dev

or in Windows

$ set NODE_ENV=dev

Now start SAFE Browser in Console 1 with:

$ safe_browser.../safe_browser [or Windows equivalent]

[Instructions on setting up an account etc etc]

[What to do if you get stuck here]

Console 2

In Console 2 we will clone the repo which contains the boilerplate using git onto a local folder named safe_examples :

$ git clone https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_examples safe_examples

set the environment to dev:

$ export NODE_ENV=dev

And then install its dependencies:

$ cd safe_examples/safe_app_electron_quick_start
$ npm install

At this point we have an Electron application ready to be launched, let’s run it:

$ npm start

[what we expect to see, etc, screenshot]

[What to do if you get stuck here]

Console 3

In Console 3 we will import the SAFE API.

The application will interact with the SAFE Network using the safe-node-app package, we therefore need to add it as a dependency in our package:

$ npm install @maidsafe/safe-node-app --save

[What to do if you get stuck here]

Configuration file

We will now edit the config file in stages to authorise our app, connect to the network, and create an editable file (MutableData) on the network.

First find the file safenetwork.js in /path/to/file and open it in a text editor.

At each stage, it would be useful if there were a note about common errors and their causes and possible solutions. For example:

“‘Uncaught in promise’ error - this can be solved in some OSs by upgrading node and npm …”[link to how to do this]

It would be good to have the final safenetwork.js file available to copy or download so users can make sure it is not their mistakes that are causing the errors.

Also, how about linking mentions of functions such as initialiseApp to the relevant API documentation?

That’s it for now. I hope walk-thoughs are planned for the other apps too? Happy to assist in writing/editing.

EDIT: Also, how about a different favicon for the dev hub? At the moment its the same as the safedev forum icon. Just a small change like a thin border or something would help differentiate it.

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I concur jlpell,very well done indeed.

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Sorry for the late reply, I have been totally out of everything for a week due to a bereavement.

+1 for a decent link to the latest peruse

also some info on just why we need two browswers and the pros, cons and philosophies behind each.

@JPL an excellent contribution :slight_smile:

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Sorry to hear about your sad news @Southside - my condolences.

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All - I’m being a little quiet on this one for the moment to give people the chance to add their thoughts.
Thanks for the input so far… I’m keen that we work on what’s wanted.
Cheers for now,
David.

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+1 on this. Why not just focus on Peruse?

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I’v tried the ‘SAFE Web App Tutorial’ and I think it is a good introduction!

Feedback (nitpicks) I didn’t see in the posts above:

  • Maybe describe somewhere how to test with a seperate local webserver (e.g. ‘python3 -m http.server 5000’ on Linux) → more freedom in testing self made examples in my opinion.
  • In the original safenetwork.js I see no ‘;’ after the ending ‘}’ of the 2 first functions. It could be that this is part of the used code standard that (only) empty javascript functions, without arguments, shouldn’t have a semicon character at the end, but I find it inconsistent.
  • Is there a use case of the mockup SAFE Browser without the NODE_ENV variable set to ‘dev’, which is the default setting now? And if yes: is the estimated use case bigger than with NODE_ENV=dev? Because if not, maybe an idea to change the default setting of the mockup SAFE Browser, if possible.
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