On elementary OS? Hit the button to get Transporter.

Transporter by Bleak Grey is pure magic. Based on a technology called Magic Wormhole (yes, really), it makes sharing a file across the room or across the globe stupid easy. This is seriously my new favorite app.

Meet Bleak Grey

Before we dive into Transporter, let’s meet Bleak Grey and hear his development story.

While Bleak Grey’s not his real name—he wishes to remain anonymous—Bleak is willing to share a little about himself and his interests: he’s a linguistics student who dabbles in photography, drawing, and learning German. He also aspires to learn to play the violin, and ponders about releasing a game some day (please, I’d love to see more games in AppCenter!).

Bleak started developing apps for elementary OS due to his drive of trying new things, and his falling in love with the community.

One day I found out about elementary OS. It was beautiful, fast, and easy to use, so I decided to install it on my laptop. In fact, I liked it so much I wanted to be a part of this community. When I realized AppCenter could use some native apps from developers, I decided to write an app.

So he did.

Getting into Development

He had never developed for Linux before, so he was truly trying something new! He followed the elementary Developer Guide, Googled for help, and spent the next couple of weeks building Transporter.

There were some ups and downs (I mean the “aaaaagh” commits), but I think it’s relatable to the programming as a whole. I feel like the entire experience with elementary was so enjoyable it makes me want more.

He spent the next week getting it packaged up, built, and tested in AppCenter Dashboard. After figuring out the Debian packaging, it was smooth sailing.

The publishing process is smooth and really simple. You connect your GitHub account, release a version and submit it to AppCenter. Honestly, I was shocked at how easy it was. The time gap between writing and publishing Transporter was so short it’s amazing.

The Result: Transporter

So how did Bleak do? Like I mentioned at the start, really well: this is my new favorite app! Let’s take a closer look.