Applications Team Update: Notifications, Condenser, and More!
Today’s @steemitblog post is brought to you by the Steemit Applications team. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the projects we’ve been working on over the past few weeks.
Hivemind
Getting Hivemind ready for production continues to be a major focus. Hive will enable communities on Steem, and provide a more efficient means for data retrieval for all Steem DApps. Much of the work for communities has been going on behind the scenes with design meetings and planning. We are also fine-tuning Hive so it runs optimally and can support large amounts of traffic in production.
Parallel Transaction Batches
Hive has been updated to more efficiently process bulk requests by adding the ability to retrieve batches of transactions in parallel.
Improved Error Handling
Improvements have also been made to Hive which will enable it to more effectively handle scenarios where the upstream steemd node may have fallen behind, and to optimize the handling of errors.
(Hivemind issue 120, Hivemind issue 123, and Hivemind issue 126)
Fix Comment Counts
An issue was fixed where Hive was not correctly representing the number of comments a post had received.
Improved Testing
Test coverage has increased and the groundwork for automated sync testing has been implemented. This will help ensure that new changes introduced to Hive do not break existing behavior, making it easier for devs to contribute and review code.
New Notifications System - Yotifications!
We are continuing work on a new notifications system that will be called “Yotifications.”
Yotifications will be a new addition to the Steem stack that will make it easier than ever for developers to integrate notifications into their Steem app. This new notifications system will support multiple types of notifications, including: account updates, comment and post replies, feed updates, new follows, mentions, power downs, token transfers (send and receive), resteems, new rewards, and votes.
Yotifications will include options to send the notifications via multiple delivery mechanisms such as condenser (steemit.com) pop-ups, as well as email notifications. Users will be able to configure the notifications that they receive as well as how (and how often) they receive them via their settings. Once Yotifications are complete, notifications won’t only get better on steemit.com, they’ll also get better across the ever-growing Steem ecosystem.
(Condenser issue 2102, Condenser issue 2103, Condenser issue 2928, Yo issue 109, Yo issue 107, Yo issue 108, and Yo issue 27)
Improving Developer Tools
Work has progressed on developer tool libraries jussi and steem-js.
Jussi
Jussi is a critical piece of software for the Steem development stack. It is a “reverse proxy” service that allows us and developers to map various API calls to different Steem blockchain servers to optimally distribute the load. It is a critical component that ensures the quality of Steem-related services remains high. It is especially useful for developers and node operators.
An error was fixed with the improper caching of data. A change was also made to enable the account_history_api_plugin.
(Jussi issue 193 and Jussi issue 197)
Steem JS
steem-js is a library used by application developers to interface with the Steem blockchain. An update was made by community developer @netuoso to properly support the witness update operation when using the null signing key.
Condenser (steemit.com)
Posting Editor Advanced Options
Community developer @eonwarped submitted a change to give users an “advanced options” page on the posting editor where they can change their payout for the post to non-default options.
Fix Invalid Image Data Handling
An issue was fixed where other platforms saving invalid image data for a post could cause a user’s profile on steemit.com to not display.
(Condenser issue 2923 and Condenser issue 2939)
Feature Flags
We have implemented a system that will allow us to enable and disable specific functionality for subsets of users. One of the main benefits of this will be the ability to perform “A/B testing” on various improvements to measure their effect. With this functionality we will also be able to test the rollout of new features with a small set of users before enabling it for all users across the site. When the new Yotifications is rolled out, it will be done using this new feature flag system.
Fixed 100% Voting Issue
An issue was fixed where voting with 100% voting power would lead to an error for some users.
Improved Security of Stolen Account Recovery
In order to prevent a stolen account from continuing to power down to an attacker’s account after the stolen account is recovered, condenser will now restore the default ‘vesting route’ (where the power down is directed to) to the primary account holder’s account when the recovery takes place.
Fix BlockTrades Menu Link
An issue was fixed where clicking on the BlockTrades link from the main menu while not logged in would pass an undefined value to the BlockTrades interface.
Welcome Page Updates
Several updates were made to the “Welcome Page” by community developer @guiltyparties.
Community Contributions
We welcome community contributions and are working hard to improve our processes to ensure community suggestions and PRs are regularly reviewed and considered for production.
Steemit is Hiring
Steemit is hiring. If you’re a talented software engineer who loves the challenges of building cutting-edge DApps for cryptocurrency (and especially for Steem), then we want to hire you.
More information can be found in this recent post or on our jobs site: https://jobs.lever.co/steemit.
Thanks for reading!
Steemit Applications Team
Seems like the option to "Convert to STEEM" should be brought back since SBD price is almost at $1.00. This would help alleviate debt pressure of SBD. If it were to be brought back, then an option to "Convert to SP" should be created to allow users cash their SBD directly to SP to support long term staking of STEEM.
This was discussed in GitHub a bit. The conversion feature is considered "advanced user" functionality. For the average user, they are better off just trading for STEEM on the internal market.
Why don’t you guys let users decide that instead of telling everyone that they’re too
stupid to use a certain feature/function of the blockchain, especially one that’s designed to help alleviate certain pressures on token prices and debt loads?
It’s really up to Steemit what features they include in their UI. They tend to stay away from features that cause confusion and bad UX for “simpler users”. Users do still have choices though - to use other UIs.
@ats-david Retaliatory downvote for the unsolicited downvote over here...
https://steemd.com/photography/@saragarmee/re-ocrdu-falling-skies-20180805t113733847z
And also here...
https://steemd.com/piglet/@saragarmee/re-church-of-piglet-42b885-hear-ye-a-short-message-from-the-high-priest-of-the-church-of-piglet-himself-20180804t152136756z
You downvoted me twice, I'm only doing it once in order to call you out.
As I mentioned before. Abusive downvoting will drive people away and downvoting minnows who really don't have anything to begin with is abusive.
I realize that my downvote means nothing, but I see you're asking for witness votes and so I've asked everyone I know to unvote you as a witness because of your support for abusers like @church-of-piglet who are attacking people who have no ability to defend themselves.
You'll probably downvote me into oblivion for staying strong and not backing down from my opinions, and that's your choice. Just know I spoke my mind.
No, I’m downvoting you because you’re a liar and an idiot...you’re crying “RAPE!!!” because of a downvote worth a few cents at most.
Looks like we’ll just have another flame-out on our hands from someone who thinks they’re entitled to rewards. Good luck with that. As long as you’re willing to flame, I’m willing to put it out.
Your turn.
No thanks, I'm done. I called you out for supporting something I disagree strongly with, abusive downvoting, which is making the community toxic. Thank you for proving my point. You win. Congratulations and good luck!
What if the average user wants to support the long term staking of STEEM?
Lol what am i talking about. ignore me.
How do we use the "advanced user" feature?
You can use a third party wallet like Vessel or SteemConnect.
Vessel ?
https://steemit.com/faq.html#Is_there_a_desktop_wallet_available_for_STEEM
Is there something like Scatter EOS for Steem?
There are Vessel and SteemConnect. They aren't exactly the same, but they serve similar purposes.
Yes
Yes right
I really like the name "yotifications" yo!
I guess it explains why the previous one was called "no"tifications.
Was expecting you to say something about the Yo in yotification. LOL you did not dissapoint.
😂 Good one!
I was hoping for yodelfications or perhaps yodafications.
Anyone remembers the YO app?
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/whats-happened-to-7-million-app-yo-now-that-the-hype-has-died-2014-9?r=US&IR=T
yestifications should be correct...
Yes
Ha ha yes
Did you say "Yotification"?
I love how you guys name your stuff. It sounds exotic. Jussi. Hiveminds. Appbase. ...Etcz.
Keep doing great. We can't wait for SMTs to drop.
Air Clinic is ready to be a token for healthcare on the Steem blockchain!
https://myairclinic.com go download App and start earning AIRCOIN in advance!
I love lists like this with the links to all the pertinent bits, it makes me
! Each of these little bumps being smoothed out creates a better road for new and existing users and it's pretty rad.
I'm really excited for the building blocks being laid to help both Steemit (and all developers to come) leverage better and better social function. I'm also really excited to see more and more community developers getting into these updates! Merging in new sets of eyes from passionate, firsthand users makes for changes that reflect the wants of the community in a realistic way.
I'm pretty new here and your comment made me feel so welcomed. Thank you.
I'm pretty new here
And your comment made me feel
So welcomed. Thank you.
- emkatherine
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
Honestly, it is one of the most amazing simple things that I did see...The only question I have, how to comment on the post?Since post in blogs on steem is just commenting it should be as well easy to add comment option.
Awesome work! Respect! 👍 - then again:
I'd love to see the Steemit-Interface improved, such as:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@deepimpulse/why-doesn-t-steemit-provide-some-help-faq
Where would be the right place to suggest this? ⭐️
Yotifications?! That sounds an awful lot like "Yoda-fications". Coincidence? I don't think so! This anti-Imperial bias is terrible. JUST TERRIBLE. SO SAD!
Right
A great update!
Looking forward to the notifications feature!
Keep it going!
Great News!! This is what should hype people up than any price bumps of Steem!! Keep doing the Lord's work guys!!
Great update, but what about a Timeline or rough estimation when we can expect Hivemind, HF 20 or SMT to be launched?
We aren't giving out timelines at this point. We're making a lot of progress on all fronts. HF20 will happen first as it's a prerequisite for many of the functionalities we are looking to add to Steem. It is far along, but we want to make sure that the witnesses have plenty of time to test it out before it goes into production. Hivemind 1.0 was already released.
Hivemind 1.0 .. great
If you expect SMTs for 2020, I think you will not be disappointed. 😉