inSpace Dev Update 19th March 2018

I decided to try out using steem for posting dev updates for inSpace.

I'm aiming to get one of these out every two weeks to help everyone keep track of where we are with the development and vision of inSpace.

Brief Overview

inSpace is a social filestore. An IPFS filestore running on EOS that has a social layer ontop of it. inSpace uses isCoin (yet to be released EOS crypto currency) to power the system, reward content, and enable users who stake coins to get either more filespace or receive staking rewards.

Apart from being a distributed social filestore, our main differentiator is that we are developing a spatial user interface, for interacting with inSpace. This means that some normally easy things to do with UI are much harder for us, They take both more dev time and design consideration. But we believe its time for something new, and the effort is worth it.

Our initial implementation is zooming 2D, we will start add in the 3rd D as soon as we get the 2D to a satisfactory base level.

There is some other early inSpace demo stuff here at this link, note the video player does not work so well yet, so its better to download any video files to view them (with the drop down menu on a node).
https://beta.inspace.tv/folder/5953e37e25c69b3db7a527d2

Dev update

We are working toward an EOS based pre-alpha in the coming weeks. With Saman working on core server and web client, and Dave working on all cross platform sync clients. I'm the creative director for the project. I hold the long term vision and make sure the yet to be implemented design hangs together with it. I also handle production and write these reports.

The EOS based pre alpha has the following features of inSpace.

-- An inSpace website, where you sign in using your inSpace account, and then provide an EOS identity via Scatter. Your EOS account has the root folder's IPFS address in a Filespace EOS contract.
-- The web client can fetch your Filespace tree from IPFS, display it as a force graph, you can upload files to the inSpace server (an IPFS node).
-- Cross platform Sync clients working on the IPFS node similar to the web client. Keep improving platform syncing from here forward.

Here is the technical detail on what we got done in the last fortnight:

Saman
"I wrote the basic Node.js framework, with database connection, user accounts, sessions for login etc. This time around I'm using a proper build system for fetching and integrating dependencies, instead of manually finding and copying files. I'm trying out EJS a popular templating engine, instead of writing my own like last time."

I also found a way of programatically spawning and setting up an IPFS daemon from Node.js, and I eventually got that working. There is a related JavasSript library for the IPFS HTTP API, and I was able to use that to create a web page that lets the user upload a file to our IPFS node. I had a problem using the pinning API, but apparently newly added files are automatically pinned, so it should be ok.

Now I'm working on the EOS side."

Dave
"I'm close to getting the android build up and running, I appear
to have cracked all the QT app problems (the app runs and gets as far as
the login screen), currently just trying to get a working version of
openssl for android so that login can work (if that works then all other
server access should work as it's all done via curl / openssl), then I
need to get file storage working (shouldn't be a big deal) and then the
app should basically work so I can start to think about some basic UI
changes so it is usable.

As soon as I get a basic android version running I'll do the same for iOS
so then we can decide it we're we can use the same QT UI on desktop /
mobile or if we need to use QtQuick2 for mobile / both to get a native
looking UI.

I'll be looking at installer bits soonish hopefully, will be taking a look
at MS's new multiplatform installer tool
https://github.com/Microsoft/msix-packaging which is multiplatform (all
the ones we care about) so it might be good for a consistent way of
building installer packages."

Servan
"some cleanup for inSpace.tv website to bring it uptodate and started cross linking to the isCoin.io website

Waiting for Bio's from Saman and Dave so I can add.

Prepping isCoin spec for isCoin website"

Outstanding Items

-- Main opening right now is for a front end developer/designer who can work with Servan to flesh out the front end experience.

-- Finalizing our repo structure preparing the server and web client source for GitHub.