BitCoinJ User Interface Proposal (bitcoinj@googlegroups.com)

[jim...@fastmail.co.uk]

I've shared BitCoinJ User Interface Proposal

Click to open:

• BitCoinJ User Interface Proposal

Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

[Jim Burton]

I will work on this doc over the weekend so don't bother looking at it
yet - I'll email out when it is ready for review

On Jul 1, 9:51 pm, jim...@fastmail.co.uk wrote:
> I've shared a document with you:
>
> BitCoinJ User Interface Proposalhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1tQCwtV45UhHqb_C33ZQPVw08RwItURtua...
>
> It's not an attachment - it's stored online at Google Docs. To open this  
> document, just click the link above.

[Jim Burton]

I have updated the BitCoinJ User Interface doc with new screenshots
and menu options.

Stored as:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tQCwtV45UhHqb_C33ZQPVw08RwItURtuav5ajUPIN0U/edit

It is quite a lot simpler. I still need to do mock ups for the
address book and set/change password dialogs but, apart from those, it
is mainly complete.

Your feedback is appreciated.

[Mike Hearn]

Could you make the doc world readable?

--
Google Switzerland GmbH

[Jim Burton]

Should be public to everyone now.

On Jul 4, 3:09 pm, Mike Hearn <he...@google.com> wrote:
> Could you make the doc world readable?
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Jim Burton <jim...@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
> > I have updated the BitCoinJ User Interface doc with new screenshots
> > and menu options.
>
> > Stored as:
>

> >https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tQCwtV45UhHqb_C33ZQPVw08RwItURtua...

[Mike Hearn]

Great. If you make it world editable too, we can comment on it directly.

For now though, somebody has told me they're going to work on PeerGroups. Do we need any indicator of network connectivity at all, beyond online/offline?

--
Google Switzerland GmbH

[Jim Burton]

Have changed to 'world editable"
Good point - you only want to know you are connected. Number of
peers is irrelevant to regular user. Will add note.

[Jim Burton]

I have updated the UI doc to reflect people's comments. (I want to
keep it up to date as I plan to convert it to the user documentation/
help file later).

Also, has there been any work in bitcoinj so far on the format of the
address book, including the persistence format ?
I could not see anything obvious in the code base. My first thought
was to use the same format as bitcoin's addr.dat but that is a binary
format which does not look terribly friendly. (Berkeley db ?)

If no-one has done anything I will have a dig around and come up with
a proposal.

Thought I would ask first to see if it had already been done or
thought about.

[John Sample]

At the moment bitcoinj doesn't have a notion of accounts like the
satoshi client.
All bitcoinj does now is store a list of keys.

I'm trying to change that to an interface that still provides just a
list of keys but those keys could be provided by anything. You could
then add all the account labeling on top of that and use whatever
storage format you want. You could even go way further than the
satoshi client and have nested accounts, notes, order numbers, contact
info, etc without breaking compatibility with the API.

[Jim Burton]

I like the idea of an interface in, say, the core package.
Then my tools.viewer package code will depend on the core code but not
vice versa.
That feels right.
I can then hide away the implementation nicely.

Sounds like a plan. :-)

[Jim Burton]

An update to the BitCoinJ Swing Wallet Viewer work.
I have added new dialogs and improved the UI. There are now dialogs
for sending and receiving bitcoins and the address book.

I have updated the shared google doc at:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tQCwtV45UhHqb_C33ZQPVw08RwItURtuav5ajUPIN0U/edit?hl=en_US

and you can download the executable jar at:
http://jdigi.net/bitcoinj-20110713.zip


At the moment it is all 'view' i.e there is no model or controller
behind it.
If you have any suggestions please feel free to add them to the google
doc.

[Mike Hearn]

Looking smooth!  :)

I suggest thinking more about the flows on the receive/send coins dialogs. When I click "Receive coins", shouldn't it pre-create an address for me? Or give me a selection of some recently used addresses for convenience?

BTW, on a similar vein to the discussion with Andreas/Brian, could you call the app something other than BitCoinJ viewer? I think it's best to keep BitCoinJ as referring purely to a library, and have apps built on top of it have distinctive brands.

I'm not totally sure what the balance box is about - why is the left hand side blacker than the others?

You could also represent the date/time column as "2 hours ago", "yesterday at 4pm" etc in some cases. Might be easier to read.

[Jim Burton]

On the receive coins I will keep track of the last used receive
address and have it pre-populated yes.
Both the Send and Receive dialogs get a bit 'message boxy' when you do
an address look up - a dialog in front of a dialog. This could
definitely be improived.

RE name of app - I will think up a 'proper' name for it - agreed that
BitCoinJ should be just for the library.

With the balance box: I was *trying* to be stylish but it obviously
just confuses. I will put it back to a equal border on each
side. ;-)

The date/ time column would look better using 'relative time' yes.
'Absolute' time forces everyone to do a date/time subtraction in their
head.

[Jim Burton]

Mike < Do you want me to start putting the code into SVN yet ? It
would have to go into a separate branch because:
1) I don't think we want to 'contaminate' the main branch bitcoinj jar
with Swing classes. They would be worse than useless for Android
developers.
2) I have added some resource dirs and there is a different build file
to package up the executable jar

I have been holding off as you can end up with 'branch hell' if you
are not careful but it might be time to put it in now. I mention it
as Gary has offered to do a Russian translation (his wife is
Russian).
Let me know if you want it in yet or not.

[Gary Rowe]

Jim, don't feel pressured to get your code into a branch just because of me. I can simply post the properties file to you at your convenience. 

[Jim Burton]

Gary Rowe came up with the excellent suggestion of calling the Swing
viewer app : "MultiBit".

I have just registered the domain "multibit.org".

So . . . goodbye Swing Wallet Viewer . . .

Hello . . . <bold>MultiBit</bold>

[Gary Rowe]

Big smile :-D