Development Update Overview

This month’s development update begins with a focus on improving integration. We evaluated three areas of our support applications to identify where we can improve. The decision to focus on Block Explorer, Forum, and the Blog will enable us to align applications within the same ecosystem (even if their functionality varies). As each application is still under development, the front end design may vary slightly from the final release.

In parallel with this work, we continue to focus on integrating the SSS with XCITE. The current feedback received from the CEO and COO deep dive into the structure and architecture of the technology with Borzalom and CCRevolution reaffirms to us that we are more than just a crypto coin. We are a development platform that is going to have an immediate impact on addressing several solutions within various business sectors. As such, our current development focus will not change. However, it was mentioned that our path to market will need to be more structured and leverage our development talent. The full plan to market and how we will achieve this will be released in the coming months.

XCITE & SSS

This month we’ve been working on node registration and wallet functionality within XCITE/SSS, and expanding upon the DICOM API.

A foreword on binary releases/code updates

In the June update, we’d suggested that the release of new builds of XCITE, SSS, DICOM documentation, etc over the up and coming months. In the month preceding this, the team had to deal with an outside critical malicious attempt to deceive people by mirroring the XTRABYTES website with xtrabyte.global website, (now suspended).

The result of this attempt to impair and harm XTRABYTES allowed us to review the current security gaps, and build out contingency plans to address these types of illegal activities from happening in the future.

One of the executive management’s key objectives is to protect and secure the intellectual property of XTRABYTES, which includes a tactic that the development team leverage the community in the Beta testing process, which will provide feedback prior to the launch of the platform.

XCITE/SSS

Wallet functionality is working on the old-chain testnet via the SSS for most addresses. There are a couple of issues still to track down for addresses with many transactions, but this is in hand.

Keys and addresses can be generated (currently encrypted on disk/SSS with BIP38). Testnet XBY can be both sent and received on-chain. The code providing this functionality is available “for free” to the mobile versions of XCITE when its UI is ready.

Node Registration

Generation of prerequisite addresses/movement of XBY for node registration will be completed via the current (old) mainnet wallet. These details alongside proof of ownership (via generation of signed text) will need to be copy/pasted into the form in XCITE.

Initially, we’d considered automating many of these steps, but the mixing of testnet and mainnet key/address generation was deemed too dangerous given the amount of XBY required to lock-up a node.

All that said, XCITE now has the mechanism to provide the details for node registration and submit those details to the SSS for verification and storage. Ultimately, XCITE will submit these details to the STATIC network instead.

We’ll begin smoke testing internally toward the end of this month, as previously planned.

Next:

The cross-platform development provides its own unique set of challenges, one of which is ensuring that changes made to the codebase compile correctly for each supported operating system. Windows seems to be a long-term personal nemesis, often taking hours of additional work fighting with the linker when adding new third-party libraries.

We’re working on a way to modularise our code such that each component can be built and versioned separately, reducing the risk of ‘breaking the build’ when we need to introduce new libraries. This will stand us in good stead as we scale up independent development teams to own and iterate upon the individual aspects of the platform.

Block Explorer

After conducting a development analysis of the previous block explorer, we were able to determine how it should be modified for future use. This new block explorer will be more stable and beneficial to support applications.

Main view of the block explorer:

View of transaction details:

Main view of the node list:

View of node details:

Main view of the rich list:

Forum

Our team will be rebuilding the forum from scratch and will fully integrate it into the official website. The new forum will enable community members to enjoy longer discussions, all of which will be indexable and trackable (unlike Discord). This capability will be particularly beneficial to developers who rely upon properly categorized development updates. Finally, we will be streamlining the forum registration process so that Discord members can register simply by using their login credentials (rather than create another account).

Forum home view:

Forum category view:



Forum post view:

Blog

Given our blog’s steady growth in readership, our communications department has decided to revamp its design. We’re reviewing a new design format and intend to bring developers on board to implement it when ready. This new contemporary design will feature attractive profile pages for every writer, a smoother user interface, improved category layouts, and a sign-up form for guest bloggers. Take a look at our front page and post page design concept below:

Main view of the blog homepage:

View of a blog post page:



Tutorial Videos

Our support team audits the Zendesk FAQ & user guides every two weeks, a necessary endeavor to remain relevant and is up-to-date. Since our last update, we’ve produced several new video tutorials for our most popular Zendesk articles. Community members can find them by visiting our official Youtube channel or heading directly to our most popular videos below:

How To Import & Export Private Keys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csr5m6SAMFU

How To Encrypt Your Wallet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxzAKTHWrx8

Developers Needed

As with any growing company, we are in need of developers to assist us in several areas. We are looking for front-end and back-end developers with knowledge of C++, QT & QML. We are also in need of website developers with knowledge of PHP, Symfony, SQL, HTML, JQuery, AND Ajax.

If you are passionate and eager to work in a growing industry, please reach out to our careers department with a brief cover letter and your CV at [email protected]

Until next time,

The XTRABYTES Team