Steem Keychain integrated to steemstem.io… and more!

lemouth-dev (63) in steemstem • 5 years ago

Here is a short report about the latest developments around the SteemSTEM dapp, steemstem.io. I am a bit slow in writing those reports, the latest one having been written 1.5 month ago… However, it is never too late to fill the gap!

This report details the tasks achieved within the last month, from the release of steemstem.io v0.8 to its current version freshly deployed yesterday (v0.9.13). All commits can be browsed from our GitHub repository, for those interested in the technical side (the app is open source).

The last part of this post focuses on the top items of our long to-do list.

Integration of Steem keychain

Until now, users had to go through SteemConnect to login to the app and start broadcasting operations on Steem. Since yesterday, a second option is available in the case where Steem keychain, a browser extension for Brave, Chrome and Firefox, is installed.

On the top-right corner of the app, there is now a dropdown menu allowing the user to choose how to identify himself/herself. If Steem keychain is selected, the latter will be used to vote, write, comment and resteem posts, edit comments and posts, as well as follow and unfollow a given author. Otherwise, the app will make use of the good old SteemConnect.

The control of the wallet still relies on SteemConnect, any transaction being validated externally from the SteemConnect dashboard. This will be manageable with Steem keychain soon.

Image / video embedding, link identification

Following this great post, it turned out that markdown/html conversions were partly broken, which yielded severe issues for image and video embedding.

The currently adopted strategy to deal with markdown/html conversion relies on two public packages, kramed and meteor-markdown. Those packages being not perfect and compatible with the summerlite editor used within the app, the display of several posts was broken.

I have implemented a new layer taking care of pre-processing the body of a post, so that markdown/html conversions are much smoother. In this way, usernames, links, images and videos are correctly handled and displayed, as shown below.

However, this created some minor issues on other posts, that were noticed much later. It turns out that the only fix consists in getting rid of kramed and meteor-markdown, and develop instead my own converter instead (currently on the to-do list).

Bug fixes and small things

I have also fixed several minor bugs and added a couple of features:

The number-of-tag limit has been pushed to 10.
Intempestive TOS prompts belong to the past.
New filters have been implemented so that the displayed posts can be restricted to the top ones (trending) or best ones (hot).
One minor bug in the paid post-promotion system (that no one uses… yet) was fixed.

The close future

Most importantly, we have decided on the priorities for the next couples of weeks, although nothing is frozen (please speak up to push for the development your favourite feature).

Drafts cannot be saved for many weeks, due to the usage of deprecated methods. This will be completely redesigned (via custom json operations).
The integration of Steem Keychain will be finalised (wallet handling).
Post editing is badly coded and should be improved (this was my first significant excursion in the JS world).
Markdown/HTML handling will be reprogrammed.
The global design may change a bit (colour scheme, etc.).

Feel free to share your experience with the app, to report bugs or suggestions via the comments to this post or the #app-discussion channel of the SteemSTEM discord server.

steemstem steem steemdev science technology mathematics engineering

5 years ago by lemouth-dev (63)

$63.15

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agmoore2 (63) · 5 years ago

Can I admit to not understanding a lot of the features? But may I also admit to wide-eyed admiration for your constant updating and creating? Such restless minds lead us from the established and routine to the future. I'll just hitch my ride to your wagon and try to catch on as I go along.
So much energy, so much initiative :)

$0.07

6 votes

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lemouth (72) · 5 years ago

For which part of the post do you need further explanations? I would be happy to give more (as you can guess).

The most practical one (at least to my opinion) is the keychain one. If you install the extension to your browser, assuming it is chrome, firefox or brave, this will make things way easier for logging in, commenting, voting, etc... without having to deal with your keys and steemconnect. But this is my personal opinion :)

$0.12

7 votes

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agmoore (64) · 5 years ago

Now you will know how ignorant I am...I don't understand if this affects the way I use SteemSTEM.io now, or in the future. How do I access keychain? I opened this second account @agmoore2 so I could share my keys through Steemconnect without risking too much (smaller account). Sharing keys has always been something I just didn't want to do. On the other hand, I wanted to participate in SteemSTEM.io (and vote on dpoll). I support SteemSTEM.io posts with both accounts but only connect through the small account
So, keychain will be another way to connect with SteemSTEM.io, right? Make the change now? You see I'm confused. And how to make the change?
My son is away for the weekend. Maybe when he comes back I'll ask him to sort it out for me. You don't have to trouble yourself. He's my tech translator :)

$0.04

2 votes

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mobbs (69) · 5 years ago

In case he's not around:

Keychain is an extension here

Then just log in using that option.

$0.00

2 votes

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agmoore (64) · 5 years ago

Thank you, @mobbs: I will wake up fresh tomorrow and investigate. You are very kind :)

$0.04

2 votes

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lemouth (72) · 5 years ago

I find it very useful in the sense it is a very smooth way to deal with multiple accounts. I have four-five of them that I regularly use (@lemouth, @lemouth-dev, @top-quark, @steemstem, etc.), and the extension easily prevents me from making mistakes in using one instead of the other.

$0.12

6 votes

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agmoore2 (63) · 5 years ago

Thank you, @lemouth :)

$0.00

1 vote

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samminator (75) · 5 years ago

Nice updates Lemouth. I must salute the efforts you put in towards making SteemSTEM App better and better. Great job sir

$0.06

3 votes

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lemouth (72) · 5 years ago

Thanks a lot Sammi! I am doing my best with the time I have :)

$0.04

2 votes

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mobbs (69) · 5 years ago

Just tried Keychain. It's beautiful and smooth logging in there now. 50 times better than steemconnect. Wow.

And the ToS being gone is like... a game-changer. That beast was so frickin' annoying.

10 tags is also pretty cool, no reason why not, after all.

So much great work - as always!

$0.02

2 votes

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lemouth (72) · 5 years ago

After having discovered Steem keychain, I became almost immediately an unconditional fan (more or less, let's say) :D

$0.00

1 vote

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steemstem (73) · 5 years ago

This post has been voted on by the SteemSTEM curation team and voting trail. It is elligible for support from @minnowbooster.

If you appreciate the work we are doing, then consider supporting our witness @stem.witness!

For additional information please join us on the SteemSTEM discord and to get to know the rest of the community!

Thanks for having used the steemstem.io app and included @steemstem in the list of beneficiaries of this post. This granted you a stronger support from SteemSTEM.