Filecoin Filecoin Liftoff - the Main Event, 22 Oct 2020

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From YouTube: Building Dev Tools on Filecoin

Description

We’ll hear from three teams who are building powerful tools (Web3API, Pygate, and Filsnap) to help more developers harness the power of the Filecoin network.

Join us for Filecoin Liftoff Week, an action-packed series of talks, workshops, and panels curated by the web3 community to celebrate the Filecoin mainnet launch and chart the network’s future. https://liftoff.filecoin.io/

Events take place all week, October 19-23, 2020. #FilecoinLiftoff

For more information on Filecoin
- visit the project website: https://filecoin.io/
- or follow Filecoin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Filecoin

Get Filecoin community news and announcements in your inbox, monthly: http://eepurl.com/gbfn1n

Chapters:
00:00 Jordan Ellis from Web3API
07:00 Pygate with Peter Van Garderen
15:10 FilSnap with Belma Gutlić

A

Web3Pi, it's a developer tool chain that brings the ease of web 2 to web3. It aims to enable hyper-composable multi-platform, web3 applications, there's a huge problem going largely on notice in the web3 ecosystem. It's the integration problem in web 2 applications are lightweight and all complex logic is executed on central servers.

A

When a user tweets, the app simply makes a request of twitter's api. This enables apps to integrate dozens of apis seamlessly, but in web3 applications handle this complex logic themselves, because central servers have been replaced with peer-to-peer networks and expensive smart contracts.

A

For example, when a user creates a dial proposal, the app might need to serialize inputs upload to a distributed storage network and transact with multiple smart contracts. Web3 apps can utilize javascript wrappers to handle these complexities, but this leads to an integration. Nightmare javascript wrappers lack standardization bloat applications and cannot be used in other languages.

A

The integration problem significantly hinders innovation and adoption in web3, and it's only getting worse as web 3 grows in complexity. Web 3 needs to be simple. We can do better enter web3 api, a standard that makes integrating web3 as easy as web. 2. web3 api allows any type of application to execute complex protocol logic on the fly instead of embedding various javascript wrappers applications just need the web3 api client web3. Api powered apps will download lightweight webassembly modules from ipfs and execute api requests directly inside the app any protocol is just a request away.

A

Web3Api enables many use cases that are yet to be fully realized. In web3, for example, web3 protocols can now be used in any type of application, such as games and iot devices compose infinite web 3 protocols without bloating the size of the package or requiring central servers evolve. Existing protocols by publishing custom extensions and, lastly, create dynamic, in-app experiences, no rebuilds required web3 api's architecture is simple.

A

Once a dapp is equipped with the web3 api client, it can now choose to send queries to any protocol, given its decentralized api endpoint, also known as an ipfs hash, the apis package will be downloaded in all required. Webassembly modules will be instantiated at runtime.

A

The application's queries can now be resolved, leading to the invocation of one or more web3 api modules. Apis can also query each other, leading to a whole new level of composability and extendability.

A

So how exactly does web3 api benefit? Filecoin's, ecosystem, first and foremost, web3 apis must be stored and accessed via decentralized storage networks, filecoin and ipfs perfectly satisfy this need providing a global file system where applications can access apis whenever they're needed.

A

Additionally, web3 api streamlines filecoin's application integration process, making developer onboarding much much easier instead of developers using one of filecoin's sdks written in their desired language, they can instead use a web3 api client to query filecoin's api and, lastly, but certainly not least, api can speed up filecoin's core development process instead of building and maintaining filecoin's core components in multiple languages, like it's being done today, these same components can be authored as web assembly based web3 apis.

A

This will remove code, duplication and drastically reduce maintenance costs into the future.

A

Now, let's see a quick demo, so here we have an example, simple storage project. What we're gonna first do is we're going to set up the test environment.

A

What this is going to do is, in the background, it's going to set up the various different services that we have running for our project, which is ipfs, ethereum and then also a subgraph.

A

So next, what we'll do is we'll go ahead and we'll deploy our contracts.

A

This is done just as it is normally done, with ethers or biddler or web3.js, and then lastly, we'll build and publish our web3 api.

A

Here you can see we provide an ipfs node, a subgraph and also a test ens domain to be used that ens domain will direct to the to the ipfs hash and so now. Lastly, once this is built, we can actually get a content id for our package on ipfs. So let's go ahead and check out what this is.

A

If we look at the package, we have a query and a mutation was a module. We also have a schema for our simple storage project, here's the mutations and the queries, and then, lastly, we have the manifest file which describes the structure of the project.

A

This is identical to the protocol's build directory, and so lastly, we'll actually see this and see this in action. So instead of writing, let's say some tests in javascript. What we've done instead is we've created a simple json format, and it will execute a series of queries through the command line against our protocol against our web through api, and so here, as you can see, we're getting some data from the contract using the git data.

A

Query we're setting data using the set data mutation and then, lastly, we're querying the subgraph to get some historical uh past events and all of this, just by using some very simple queries that look like this. So the developer experience looks just like web 2 using uh using graphql or rest, and so we'll jump back into the presentation.

A

Recently we finished as finalists and won several prizes at hackfest. Since then, we have been engaging with various projects to understand how api can solve their problems.

A

The current north star of the project is the web 3 hub a place for anyone to discover, use and integrate web through apis.

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If you're interested in contacting the team behind web3 api, please fill out the form linked below. Thank you. So much for your time.

B

Pygate is a python interface for the filecoin network, our team developed highgate for this past summer's hack fest event. We were selected as one of the 10 finalists from over 130 projects.

B

Our motivation for pygate is to open the door to the exciting new world of filecoin decentralized storage to the army of pythonista developers. These are the results. From a february 2020 stack overflow survey of over 65 000 developers. Python was overwhelmingly voted as the most wanted language.

B

It was also by far the most asked about language on stack overflow in 2020, machine learning, data science, enterprise, web applications, digital preservation systems and many other innovative tools rely on the flexibility, consistency of python to help solve complex problems for people around the world.

B

However, filecoin applications and the popular textile developer tooling suite are both based on golang and javascript. That is until now. Textiles powergate is a multi-tiered file, storage, api built on filecoin and ipfs, and it is an index builder for filecoin data. Powergate is the officially recommended solution for developers who want an easier interface and better performance from filecoin, but who prefer to manage their own nodes?

B

Powergate is a multi-steered multi-tiered storage solution that stores data in the interplanetary file system as so-called hot storage layer and in filecoin as a cold storage layer, powergate exposes higher level apis for developers that facilitate easier interaction with ipfs and filecoin nodes. Powergate also handles wallet management, long-term deal management and provides many features that improve the overall experience of being a storage client on filecoin.

B

The pygate team was inspired by the fact that the powergate api is made available as grpc protocol buffers. This means its messages can be easily translated into other languages, such as python, filecode and ipfs, create content, identifiers or sids for files. Sids are based on the content's cryptographic hash. That means any difference in content will produce a different sid and the same piece of content. Added to two different filecoin nodes using the same settings will produce exactly the same sid critically.

B

The sid also serves as a content address that points to files in filecoin to enable storage market actions on it, as well as retrieval from the network. The powergate api uses a filecoin file system or ffs to manage all the necessary state and capabilities to provide multi-tiered file storage using ipfs and filecoin.

B

The ffs is the primary api for storing and retrieving data tracking, long-term deals on file coin and allowing data persisted on file coin to be available in ipfs. Here we see the ffs api commands to stage a file to ipfs hot storage. Powergate returns the files sid. We could then use the sid to push the file to file filecoin cold storage, powergate returns a job id that we can use to track the state of the sid as it goes through the filecoin storage market process.

B

The powergate api is made available as grpc endpoints grpc is a high performance. Remote procedure call framework, developed and open sourced by google. It generates cross-platform, client and server bindings for many languages. It has a simple and portable messaging specification.

B

In pygate we use the python grpc bindings to convert the powergate api commands into python methods. Here we see the python class for the ffs client. All these methods are bundled into a single package which is then made available through the wildly popular and effective python package index repository.

B

This means that all the power of the powergate is now available to python developers with a simple pip install command.

B

The pygate grpc repository repository is mit, licensed and available for clones and forks on github. It includes quick start examples like this one you can see here how easy it is to create a new ffs on a powergate server and stage a file to ipfs, including helpers for the critical chunking process, then push the file to file cold storage.

B

In this example, we are also overriding the default ffs configuration file to enable specific instructions for the sid, such as what the maximum prices we are willing to pay to store this sid, as well as which miners to trust and which ones to exclude.

B

We then run a check to make sure the sid is pinned and then for the full round trip. We request the file back from filecoin, reconstruct it and save it to disk. The simplicity and succinct notation of python makes these steps easy to follow. In the code- and here is the output of that script- a ffs is created, it is assigned a security token. We grab the repositories readme as a test file. We add it to ipfs hot storage. We push it to filecoin, cold storage.

B

We output the custom json config file, we included as part of the push so that we can check the parameters used for the sid storage. We see a list of sids pinned by this ffs after the configuration file output. In this case, it's just one because it's a brand new ffs with only one test file, and then we can see that this file has been retrieved from filecoin and saved to disk.

B

The pyga grpc package is very useful for embedding in standalone scripts like this one I created for the filecoin slingshot competition, I'm using it at the end of a python, download and packaging pipeline to automatically upload a tar package to file code mainnet using my power gate, ffs other slingshot projects that are using pi gate include finfile geo, guesser, orion, deep learning cloud and movies.ax.

B

Pygit is especially powerful when bundled into python web frameworks like django or flask for the pygate project. We built a reference web app with flask to serve as a developer. Quick start, it provides a dashboard for file management, a simple and easy user interface using bootstrap and ginger templates.

B

The ability to select single or multiple files for upload to filecoin via powergate the ability to download files from filecoin, local storage of tokens, the ability to edit storage configurations, tracking wallet balances and reviewing logs of user activities.

B

The pi gate team continues to maintain and support the grpc client for our own use and community adoption. Most recently, we entered the git coin, apollo hackathon and used pygate and flask to develop a prototype for the d-platformer concept. The platformer is a response to the delete facebook movement. It's providing tools to help.

B

You liberate your data from platforms like facebook and google photos and move it to web3 networks like fatcoin storage, if you're, pythonista or just python curious, there's no better time than now to jump in and explore as the developer opportunities for the filecoin community are virtually unlimited at the moment. Pygate will help you get up and running quickly. The simple pip install will hand you the keys to this amazing new network.

B

You can clone our project from github issue. Reports and pull requests are most welcome. Thank you.

C

So my name is belma and I run a blockchain research and development company called nodefactory. We have built uh several things for filecoin and I'm happy to present you fieldsnap, which is basically a metamask plugin for falcon. I'm gonna show you briefly how it works and how you can start using it and integrate in your apps.

C

So I believe you have all heard about metamask, it's um most famous wallet for ethereum and they have both web and mobile versions, and the numbers say that it is really the most famous as they have over 1 million downloads on chrome. Only.

C

What we can achieve now with metamask is a plugin for filecoin dabs, because metamask this year offered a plugin system, so you can build your own plugin and connect anything to metamask and that's what we did with uh filecoin, so uh metronomes plugin system, snaps, those are still in uh beta version.

C

The release was planned in q4 uh this year, but I hope they will achieve uh the release regarding that. So each officially downloaded metamask has this plugin system. Currently it has to be a separated download. So in case you want to test make sure you are downloading the right version with the plugin system so how it works. On the left side, you have a tab that should integrate our adapter.

C

That's a small library in javascript typescript that contains functions such as installing sap and exposing api of the snap. So you can make transfers sign transactions, get transaction history and so on. So basically, the adapter is just a set of functions that you can use with snap and it's uh published on an npm library.

C

So I'm gonna show you a small demo. This demo is posted on the fieldsnap.netflight.com in case you want to try it as well make sure to install the metamask version, and you can uh start sending around phil with beta mask.

C

Also just note that this this demo is uh just displaying all the functions that snap has and which functions. Does it have uh so the standard procedure of connecting metamask with the dap- and here is also installing the snap in the metamath itself.

C

So here you can see all the functions that snap has, so you can get the address public key. The account balance you can also export user private key and display to.

C

Them you can also switch the networks, the first thing uh there, so you can support your dap with multiple networks and should work with metamask as well.

C

Here, I'm going to show you how the transfer works basically,.

C

The confirmations windows are a little bit ugly at the moment, but I hope they will fix this by the time they finish the better stage.

C

So this is transferring from one account to another.

C

It was a fast transfer and the metamask you can see here what you actually get when you install the snap and that's a field balance.

C

And one important thing with for dev developers would be is probably the account transactions and, of course, signing transactions, so it you can send.

C

Any any call to your api and just allow users to sign that message and make actions on behalf of them using their keys.

C

So that's the all functionality that snap has that you can use to integrate in your app in case. You want to find out more and try it for yourself. You can check out our repo. There is also a documentation and please feel free to leave your feedback, any suggestions and bugs that you can find so. Thank.

C