NEAR Developer Tooling Community, 27 Jul 2022

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From YouTube: DevTool Community Meeting (July '22)

Description

This month we talk about updates on the NEAR-API-JS, Wallet-Selector and the JS-Standalone Approach.

Share you feedback for the NEAR API JS!
👉 https://bit.ly/naj-survey

Check out the Wallet Selector repository:
👉 https://github.com/near/wallet-selector

Share your thoughts on the Workspaces Update:
👉 https://forms.gle/5NHiADrYswAwudQt6

Register here to join next month's meeting:
👉 http://near.ai/tooling-meetings

________________________________

Join NEAR's community:
Website: https://near.org/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nearprotocol/
Discord: https://near.chat/
Medium: https://medium.com/nearprotocol
Blog: https://near.org/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEARProtocol
GitHub: https://github.com/near https://github.com/nearprotocol
Dev Docs: https://docs.near.org/
Create a wallet: https://wallet.near.org/create
Apps on NEAR: https://awesomenear.com/
Learn to Build On NEAR: https://www.near.university/
Grants & Funding: https://near.org/grants/

#Blockchain #FutureisNEAR #NEAR #nearprotocol
#nft #dao

A

And jane is gonna, be chatting with us a little bit about progress. Give us an update, um get some feedback from the community on that uh also gonna, be talking about wallet, selector and uh workspaces, js, so yeah, a typical format, if you've never done this before. Please ask any questions that you have at any time um there's a little q a button at the bottom of your screen. Just go ahead and post it in there um we'll collect questions answer them when appropriate um in real time.

A

If we can, if not, um we can do it at the very end, um but uh but yeah yeah and at the end like, if you have a question, that's totally not relevant uh what we're talking about, but you have just a general question about tools that can be answered at the end. We'll have like a little ama session, so um yeah without further ado um I'll hand. This over to austin.

B

Awesome thanks josh, so, um like always we'll just start with a quick reiteration of the our tools team vision, it's just deliver the intuitive productive, reliable tools needed for web3 development, so we'll lean on the community to keep us honest and make sure that we're still executing against that vision and uh with with that in mind, just a quick update on the javascript sdk. Since I know so many people have been asking about it.

B

So we've received a ton of amazing feedback since we launched uh the enclave version at uh at consensus, and we ran that workshop and we spoke to a lot of a lot of people in the in the community um at the workshop and uh we received a lot of feedback that things like cross-contract calls um were were extremely important, so we've been prioritizing the standalone version of the javascript sdk.

B

You can think of this as, like the end goal being feature parity with the rust sdk um and and the the update that I have to share with you is that that's currently under active development. So when we have a stable launch, you will hear about it. We will be quite loud, um but um uh yeah. uh There's um it's it's gonna, be in the same repo as the enclave version.

B

So if you have any questions or issues or you want to start a discussion, start it in there um and uh and and we'll we'll- definitely be active in those as we're uh building up the functionality and the documentation, the examples etc, and all that fun stuff cool with that. I think I'm going to pass it over to jane actually to talk about something that I'm sure is on a lot of people's mind near api js, so jane I'll I'll. Keep sharing, go ahead.

C

Thank you all right, so we're going to talk about near api js, um so we received a lot of great feedback from consensus and that actually led us to prioritize near epi js and to focus our our priorities on this and we'll be making many changes that caters to need of the community.

C

So specifically, we want to have a javascript library that is well maintained and easy to use by developers for developing their dabs on near. So, as you know, this library we have not been maintained, super well until now. So to that end, we have started several initiatives to address this. I will be providing more information on this, so please expect that we'll publish a public roadmap on the near apijs and a blog post discussing near apijs in the coming weeks, so you'll be hearing from us. Let's go to the next slide. Please all right!

C

So here are some of the initiatives we're working on, so I will be talking about what we're currently working on and what are the upcoming initiatives so uh currently we're working on four separate initiatives. The first is near apijs infrastructure, so here we're building sdi pipeline with the github actions that run tests on any pr, and we also will be releasing a pr template. So, if you're considering contributing to this library, you can follow this pr template and the test will be run automatically against your pr.

C

So hopefully that makes it a little bit easier for you if you're, considering contributing so something we're setting up as we speak. The next initiative is milestone. One that's focused on the dev experience and here we'll be focusing on the num breaking fixes and enhancements to this library. So if you're thinking about this piece, some of the examples include we fixed a race condition in the wallet connection, initialization we're going to make more consistent.

C

The naming conventions and field names, english library, when we are seeing errors when these libraries during errors, such as a when transaction, is not well formatted, we'll be providing error message. That's more explicit and understandable to the developer, um we'll be deprecating a lot of the code, that's not being used and remove hacks related to error types. So these changes are being actively worked on.

C

So the next item is marketing, and I touch on this briefly- will be participating in community calls such as this one and feel free to ping me on discord telegram. If you have any questions on your api js we'll be publishing a public roadmap and blog post, so that's that is upcoming and finally, for the documentation enhancements.

C

If you are used either.jsweb3.js, you know our documentation as much to be desired, so part of the initiative is really to make the documentation much more robust example is more useful with this effort we're collaborating with devrel to make our documentations better, especially for the first time, use developers, user experience.

C

So that's the current initiatives for upcoming initiatives we're going to make major changes.

C

The first is to break this monorepo into specific npm modules, which support different environments such as the browser node react, so so the first cut at this is a modularization which will mean we'll have explicit dependency in each of these packages and that will have better tests and better documentation for each of these packages. So each module will have their own package.json.

C

And then the second milestone is, with each of these sub modules, we'll be supporting different stat apis, that's specific to the environment. So here, if you think about a module, that's geared for the window, you have access to local storage api. You have access to window object, whereas a module. That's for the react native! You will have async storage, so we just make it very specific. So if you're building an app in node in the in the browser or react, you can include a specific package.

C

So um we also heard community feedback uh requirements for using yes modules. You know, which is the common standard in javascript right now. This package supports common js modules and if you want to import es6, it leads to a slew of errors, dependency house. So we want to make sure to solve that. So you can use this library just in a play, javascript app. And finally, we want to make changes to this api to make it much more composable.

C

So right now, there's a lot of unnecessary logic, couplings between classes um so we'll be making much. We decouple where we can so, for example, if you're just making a dab, that's calling our pc. You should be able to just use a stateless api to make those calls where, if you want to app, you want the user to sign a specific transaction using wallet. You should use a different set api so think about this as breaking up and decoupling, where it makes sense. So that's what's upcoming, uh let's go to the next slide.

C

Please, okay, so um we'll be, as I mentioned, we'll be discussing near apijs in the future community calls. So please stay tuned for the release of public roadmap and the blog post, and we want to ask you to take a moment and complete this survey to tell us about your experience and suggestions near apijs. So please go to billy, slash nha survey and let us know how you: what are your thoughts yep? I will drop that link or josh. Do you mind dropping that link awesome? Thank you. Aj.

B

There was a question that came in um asking about supporting view.

C

Yes, well we'll evaluate we want to support you. That's.

A

Actually, actually vue is supported right now, like so um yeah near apijs. You can use any kind of front-end framework that you want with near-apijs. I think earlier when you were mentioning react native specifically that's more like a mobile um application version. It supports react or any kind of other javascript library that you want to use uh to build your front end. You can use new your api.js, but yeah react.

A

Native specifically, I know there was some issues, especially with around key storage and key management um that um that oh yeah we're a little bit funky. So that's why um jane mentioned react native as being one of the things that they want to support, but yeah. Currently you can use vue or react or any other. You use angular any any kind of front-end framework with new ipigs.

C

Cool moving on to the next item. Okay, so I also want to talk about wireless lectures, so this is a wallet. Selector is a single library that you can use to integrate your d-app to multiple wallets. So, if you're using walla select today- and you set up wireless selector, when the user can click connect wallet, they see the following wallets supported.

C

So this wallace selector is a library that will foster a ecosystem wallet to thrive on the air and to create a simple experience with the app developers to enable multiple wallets it. So it provides an abstraction over different wallets, so, as more wallets become available on the ecosystem, the apps that integrate the wallet selector will actually be best positioned to support users from any of these wallets um next slide. Please.

A

Someone asked um it looks like the current near wall is deprecated in wallet, selector.

C

Correct I'm going to get into that just okay, cool cool okay, so for the wallet for well for developers. What this means to you is if you're not already using wireless selector, please consider moving it to it as soon as possible, and this is because uh today, if you're, actually hard-coding a wallet url in your app, that is not a great practice. Especially there is a plan to deprecate my ear wallet.

C

So if you're hardcoding that as the specific point that will stop working in your d app, so your best best thing you can do is move to wallet selector, and this will allow you to support users of any near wallets with just a single library. And if you set up wallet selector, you have a set of white list wallets which are provided to you out of the box and from there you can adjust the priority of the order.

C

You want to show these wallets in and also you can choose to include and um or exclude different wallets, just add, npm install yarn out you can choose which wallets! You actually want to support in your d. App if you favor a specific wallet over another, so it offers a lot of flexibility, a single setup, so please consider moving to it if you're hard coding your wallet url in your day, app so for the wallet creators.

C

What this means is, if you are creating a new wallet on the near ecosystem, you want to gain traction and visibility for your wallet. So what makes most sense for you to integrate your wallet into the wallet selector, so you can open a pull request in the wallet, selector repo and we'll provide you more information on what you need to do.

C

In that pull request and if you're building a wallet, we have released our wallet, standards and eps for injecta wallets and bridge wallets, and so, if you are, if you're building wallet, please comment on these neps and we're collecting soliciting for comments and we'll be discussing this going forward. If there is sufficient comments from the community and finally, for the end users, this means they can just choose any number of wallets, that's supported by the wallet selector, and they don't have to worry about.

C

They have to set up a wallet that can be used for a specific dapp, so this makes it really easy for them, so they can just choose their favorite wallet.

C

So let's talk about their wallet will also cherry road. So, on july 5th we release version 5, which includes a breaking change to the ledger setup. So ledger users are now able to choose a specific account if they're using multiple accounts on the ledger. We also added support for the nightly connect wallet and better user experience so wallet if it's used by the app but not installed by the user. The user will see a message just as well and not installed, so they could install that wallet.

C

We're also supporting common js umd, build for wall for wallet, connect and nightly wallet, also removing beta net presets. So right now, wireless selector supports test net and may not so for the next release of 5.1 on august 16th we'll be upgrading our build system, nx2 version 14., we'll also be providing graceful defaults. So this means, when you use wallace selector you'll, have a white list of wallets, that's provided to you out box and you can make changes to the existing whitelist override. The whitelist will be adding additional support for meteor wallets and tokenary wallets.

C

So these are the two wallets that open the pr's in our wallet select repo and set up the integrations, so they will be also included in the next release. And finally- and this is super important- is you can now implement a function which requests a wallet to sign a message?

C

So if you're, a deaf, for example, you're thinking about various use cases, scenarios where you want to confirm that the user actually has ownership to this account, you can tell them to sign this message with their full assets, key which tells you yes, in fact they are the owner of the account they may have an nft or a specific token amount.

C

So this is a much much easier way than instead of adding access keys and then what's upcoming, is in 5.2, we'll be creating a new ui redesign, so stay tuned for that it'll be really exciting and can't wait to share with you all right. I think that concludes the wallace lecture, section so I'll hand over to austin for the workspace updates.

A

Real quick before we move on, there was a couple questions that zane had. Actually one is, is my near wallet the same as wallet.nir.org.

C

No, that url has changed so near wallet.near.org will no longer be supported once we cut over to my near wallet, but actually the implementation. Yes, they are the same.

A

They're, exactly the same so same same code base same everything. It's just moving to a different url, correct, okay and.

C

A

Also zane, I'm sorry did you remember, say something.

C

uh Yeah go ahead on the next question. The next question.

A

Okay, yeah no problem, um yeah zayn also was asking if we could link the the wallet neps uh as well, but yeah we'll definitely drop those in chat and then also we'll add those to the youtube recording uh after after this meeting and then uh dorian has a question. I haven't used this before. How do these different wallets handle signing full access, key transactions on the near blockchain.

C

So I think it varies for each different wallets, but the goal is to make to have standards, so we can make this consistent.

C

So what we're rolling out is the wallace to be able to use the full access key to sign a message right now: wallets are when the app integrates with the wallets, you typically add a limited access keys, that's the existing practice, but sometimes the user does not wish to add that they may just want to make sure um that to show the app that they have the full access key to the wallet, so in that case adding ss key, maybe to burden some for the end user.

C

So, specifically, in this case, we just wanted to sign a message showing that they own the wallet. Are these providers better, for example, saying there is an option? It's clear: I shouldn't trust it. So we are vetting these providers absolutely when we're adding to the wallace lecture.

A

Cool yeah, if you guys have any other questions or things come up after we move on, please feel free to ask and uh yeah we'll get it to we'll get to it um after uh at the end of the call thanks so much jane, I appreciate it.

B

Awesome so I'll be super quick with just a quick update on workspaces. um The the big thing that I just wanted to make sure everyone knew about was that we've gotten over that hurdle of workspaces, not working on m1 devices, and it was because of sandbox the sandbox dependency. um So we've we've addressed this.

B

It should work on m1 devices if it doesn't, please let us know if you're still having issues and create uh just open an issue um and then uh similar to jane um we're looking for feedback on our testing framework, so we've also created a survey uh josh, if you don't mind just popping that form into into the chat as well um we're curious about your experience using workspaces so far what you expect to see what you uh would like to improve what you're some of the pain points are, and specifically, if you're, still a sim test user, we're trying to understand, what's keeping you from migrating over to workspaces as some test is being deprecated and if there's anything that that workspace is missing.

B

That would make your lives easier. So um with that, I think that's, I think, that's all from us! So, like always, we love feedback, so please uh dennis yes, I believe fong released a new version uh I'll have to check when but uh yeah a fong should have. I think phong released a new version uh this this week.

B

Cool, oh sorry, fong hasn't it hasn't been released. Yet, okay,.

B

All right cool, I think that's it from us, then, is.

A

That is that it did we do it. I think so, cool um well yeah thanks uh thanks again everyone, if you have any questions uh that you have around tooling or anything uh yeah, please drop them in the chat right now, we'll give you like a minute or two. um If anybody has any um general questions about what we covered or general questions about, tooling and at all, um we'll do our best to answer it, but yeah we'll give them a moment or two um for anybody.

A

That's got something that they want to ask okay, um but if.

B

Yeah, I just noticed in the chat austin correcting my mistake with all with all this talk about javascript frameworks, I just I blindly put in js that I was specifically talking about workspaces rs there. So.

A

ah Workspaces rs, not workspaces,.

B

Too many too many js tools. This.

A

This uh you're in javascript land yeah. No, no, no problem thanks, thanks austin for for uh for clarifying that for us, um but yeah. If anybody has any uh anybody, has any questions, cool um questions about dev console yeah. This is actually not the depth console um meeting, um so I don't have josh quintal or anybody on that team to answer those questions, um but that meeting is the first thursday of the month um so yeah. If uh you're interested in that, please sign up for the dev console meeting, which is the first yeah.

A

Thanks no problem the problem uh cool ben wants to know: do we have an eta on workspaces, js testing? um It's been a pain for m1 users. Trying to write tests um is there? Is there? Is there an update or an eta? For that.

B

Yeah, not not an exact eta right now, but it's it's very top of mind, we're very clear on the pain that it's causing so we'll, hopefully get a release out soon.

A

Cool awesome, cool cool cool, all right, annie, any other, any other questions.

A

A

Cool well um well, yeah, again uh thanks everyone for for uh joining the call uh yeah, I'm really excited to see some work uh being done with your api js. I know it's been a pain point for some people uh have we've not prioritized it. So yeah really really excited to see um yeah that that project moving. Thank you so much jane for uh helping out with that and um yeah.

A

If you have any questions um outside of this uh come to office hours at uh deborah, that we have twice a day uh go to near.org forward, slash office hours and you can see um the two times you can add them to your calendar, where you can join us in discord for live, chats um and yeah.

A

If you have any questions um outside of those office hours, just drop them discord um or yeah um uh reach out to us um chat as well as the engineering team uh is also on that, but um but yeah we really appreciate uh everyone's opinions and support and comments and feedback and uh yeah. We'll see you next time thanks so much.