Greetings Chromia Developers and Community,
Welcome to the mid-month DevEx Team Update! Our goal is to provide you with the latest updates on the improvements being made to documentation, tooling, and network design to support the growth of the Chromia ecosystem.
Please note, our monthly retail updates focusing on mainnet development, ecosystem expansion, and marketing efforts are released at the end of each month.
Documentation and Educational Materials
Chromia Learn
Two new courses have been added, focusing on the topic of interchain communication on the Chromia Network:
Event Driven Multi-blockchain Dapp (ICMF) - In this course, we will write a dapp that consists of three blockchains that communicate with each other via Interchain Messaging Facility (ICMF). The concept behind this dapp is to use different chains to separate the various processes in an e-commerce order. Products are made available on the order chain and can be ordered (bought) by a user. Factory workers only need to interact with the factory chain. Delivery companies need only interact with the delivery chain. Chromia enables innovative dapp designs that can consist of multiple chains working together, and this course provides an excellent example of the concept.
Confirm Events Across Blockchains (ICCF) - This course teaches how to build a dapp using two blockchains. Users are authorized by proving events on one chain using the Inter-Chain Confirmation Facility (ICCF). This setup allows for payments on one blockchain while keeping business logic on another, promoting modularity on Chromia. Developers can leverage existing blockchain solutions for specific tasks, focusing solely on business logic in their dapp development.
Documentation
We have added instructions for installing the Postchain Management Console (PMC) CLI.
Tooling and Feature Updates
Chromia CLI
- When running a Chromia node locally with the ‘chr node start’ command, it is now possible to add the flag ‘–directory-chain-mock’. This will spin up the node with a mock Directory Chain which can be used with integration tests and manual testing of frontend clients. This will enable you to send cross-chain transfers using FT4, and front-end clients by using ICCF with the node discovery feature of the client.
Chromia Explorer
Chromia Explorer now lists all basic information about providers on the network. We are now working to expand this feature by providing additional statistics about the providers such as up-time, number of SCUs, and occupancy rate. These analytics will help inform the delegation decisions made by CHR stakers.
VSCode Extension
A new version release is imminent. It will include some new features:
- A search feature that finds all references of a symbol within a workspace.
- A refactoring/renaming feature that allows coders to quickly rename a symbol across the workspace.
- A caching feature that allows coders to save workspace data to disk so the extension does not need to rebuild it every time workspace is opened.
We are also working on a feature for a future release called ‘Hover documentation’. This feature will enhance the user experience within VSCode by providing pop-up windows containing documentation when hovering over Rell system libraries. For instance, if a user hovers over a code snippet like A.to_gtv(), a window will appear displaying information about the to_gtv() function, including its purpose and usage instructions.
Postchain TypeScript Client
We have added a feature to the client function ‘sendTransaction’ that removes the requirement of waiting until the transaction status is returned, eliminating the necessity for polling.
Current Development Objectives
- Releasing additional Chromia Learn content
- Upgrading the provider section of the Explorer to give performance metrics
- Releasing the updated Rell Extension for VSCode
- Adding hover documentation to the Rell VSCode extension
- Ongoing updates to Chromia CLI
- Ongoing updates to the TypeScript Client
Until Next Month,
Chromia DevEx Team
About Chromia
Modern society runs on data and every online service you’re using is built upon underlying databases - ranging from your online bank to music streaming and gaming. Chromia is a relational blockchain - a combination of a relational database and a blockchain - making it easy to develop user-friendly decentralized apps for almost any industry, including DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and more.
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