Okay the SAFE network has lauched. Yay! But I for one still have no clue how I’m supposed to use it. So I’m just going to make a list of things i’m wondering about and do we have it or not?
SAFE GUI: Do we have a GUI like what was shown in the development concept screenshots? Vaults, account management, a GUI for the launcher. Any of that? Do we have a point and click interface yet?
SAFE DNS: Have we figured out how to resolve IPs and SAFE addresses into human readable web addresses yet?
SAFE Drive: Is there an app of some kind to act as the SAFE equivalant of Google Drive?
SAFE websites: When and how can I make a website on the SAFE network?
Mobile compatibility: Like it or not the majority of computer users are on their phones these days. So making a SAFE network app for both iPhone and Android is important. This is also why making a GUI app is important.
Mesh networking: when you add phones into the mix mesh networking will become even more important.
In short I’m trilled node activity is through the roof but I still don’t know how to take advantage of the network at this point. Everything seems to be commandline based and most of it seems to be geared for Linux. Which is fine if you’re on a linux box and running everything out of terminal but if the goal is to get this out to the masses then we need executable files and a friendly UI/UX. I’m not trying to complain but rather get a handle on where we are in a practical sense.
GUI: There was an alpha or beta stage GUI during the test networks called DAVE. I think they are working on getting it to a sleeker state before releasing it for the live network.
DNS: No, there is no DNS. The working theory is we will likely have groups that put out lists and you choose which ones you want to use, like an ad block list.
Drive: There was a community member project for this that did work at one time. Not sure where it was left, but a community app dev will likely bring this to fruition in the coming months, I would guess.
Websites: You deploy your website files to the network, then you can reach them using one of the community projects. I think one is called AntTP which sets up a proxy to the safe network using a container. The other community project should be releasing soon, I think.
Mobile: Nope. Not yet.
Mesh: Nope. Not yet.
It isn’t only Linux. There are Windows and MacOS CLI tools, as well. There’s a terminal GUI of sorts called Launchpad to run nodes with if you don’t want to use the CLI commands. I never used it but several others on the board and Discord do with success.
I don’t know what it’s like for everybody else, but I still have problems to successfully upload larger files. Often I don’t get enough quotes to start the upload and when I get the quotes and send the payments the uploads not always succeed.
Those may very well be problems on my end of the wire, but nevertheless I think it’s important to address these problems before launching any shiny storage solutions for everyday users.
There are folk, mainly outside the team atm, working on things that will address all of these areas in one way or another. The dev team are busy with the network and improving support for outside development.
Unfortunately we outside can’t do much to make this accessible to everyday users because of the need to pay blockchain fees. Autonomi have said that there are ways to mitigate that, but I’ve not been able to find out what they have in mind or how well they might work.
I fear that those mitigations will further centralise things, but idk until more details of the options become available.
Nobody knows yet. The team have put Native token on the back burner to get launch done & the network running sooner, which I feel is a good move despite the trade-offs.
Because the Native token will be built using the network’s data types running on a stable network, to me it makes sense to get the data network working very well before having the token running on it.
I look forward to when consideration and development of the Native token comes off the back burner though, as the network appears to be very much held back in terms of performance & cost of use already.
So… the network is… sort of working? You got the airplane to fly but it’s more like the original biplane the Wright brothers flew and the steering is kinda janky, but hey it flies. That kind of launch?
Kind of… but it’s far more useful that e.g. the first biplane, as it can actually be used, whereas that biplane was purely a proof of concept. You couldn’t pay for a flight on it to get you from A to B.
Millions of nodes are actually connected forming a network that can now be used to store & retrieve data in exchange for network tokens that can be bought on exchanges.
There’s much to be done, but in the next few months we can expect the UX to improve significantly as network improvements are made, APIs mature, and apps start appearing to make the network far more usable.
Would a website that accepts fiat and attempts to “userfriendly” the upload to the network on the user’s behalf be against the ethos of the network? It should provide pointers on how to do this without the website mind you, the website would be a “value add”.
I’m not going to live in a fantasy land, the reality right now is:
Autonomi network has launched in Beta (right now is pretty much what I imagine beta should’ve been, except not with the native token, so less than that also)
For the network to even have a CHANCE to START to be recognized outside of this forum, everything mentioned in the OP is REQUIRED
“Did you need to feed the Autonomi API into Cursor AI? Does the GUI function yet, or is it a work in progress (given you made it last night!).”
I just pre-trained it on all of the docs I could find utilizing the ant binary. No API calls, just redirected commands to the terminal. Like when you need to use your password to upload, you have to fill it out in the console. Pretty basic.
I’d love to build in some API integration but last night I didn’t have those docs available.
There’s no official ‘how to’ yet, but basically you need to use the CLI (Command Line Interface).
I made a rough outline of how I did it on Windows here:
Hopefully soon some easier to use interfaces will be available. Happybeing and Traktion are working on stuff, among others. The team is focusing fixing network issues to make uploads themselves work better, particularly for large files.
I wasn’t sure where to put this, but i guess to add to your list is the native token.
I just wanted to make you guys aware @dirvine@JimCollinson etc that tether are launching a token on the lightening network. One to maybe consider for faster and cheaper transactions whilst we wait for the native token.
