Thanks Gavin! I see that you use "digital currency" in the title (instead of "virtual currency" that is used on www.bitcoin.org) and I think that's a great choice. There's a thread somewhere suggesting that we change "virtual" to "digital" on the home page, so could we do that now? Digital currency sounds like real money, virtual currency sounds like play money. |
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Looks excellent and REALLY looking forward to this.
Just two additions please: Add a "notes" or "category" column next to transactions (so you can remember whether that was for paying a bill, buying a rare 5830, or whatever), and allow sorting by date, by contact, and by notes. This will make it much easier to quickly find out how much we made from various pools, trading, or whatever, instead of having to run a separate spreadsheet.
Good idea! |
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Also, I realize I am probably in a minority here, but I think (optionally) allowing displays in USD is a GREAT idea. It gets really complicated, but it would help my wife figure out Bitcoin! International travelers like many of the readers here have a knack for different currencies, but here in the Midwest USA, if you aren't talking dollars, you may as well be talking kilometers. I'd get the glazed over look when I say "I transferred 2 Bitcoins".. as if people have to convert it in their heads every time.
I would REALLY like a client that operates in dollars. If I want to send the $20 equivalent in Bitcoins to someone, I want to type in $20. And I want that transaction logged in my register as a $20 transaction (forever), so that when I look back on it in a year, I don't think "why did I transfer $423 to that guy?" No, it was "$20".
I don't think that I will go as far as displaying dollars as the main unit. Hell, I'm from Sweden, so it would be Kronor here, not dollars. We want to create an international currency where people can easily compare prices from all over the world, don't we? I think that that is one of the beauties of Bitcoin. My current thought is to display Bitcoins but to have the option of displaying the equivalent in another currency somewhat smaller next to it. Your last part makes sense though, in the log this would then be the equivalent at the time of the transaction. |
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A few suggestions:
- Consider whether you need date+time, or just date. Think about your check register in your checkbook. Do you write the time? Maybe the month and day is sufficient (why waste space on the year or the time). Maybe this is an option.
- Why not keep a running balance? Think about check registers or home banking sites, and how those look. They have a column for the transaction amount, and then a column for the running total.
- Do you really care about confirmations? I'd get rid of that column. Indicate whether it's confirmed, based on color or font boldness or gray-ness.
- Allow the user to mouse over, or click on, a transaction to get the details. Here's where you can put all the information that I suggest hiding, including the whole date and time, the Bitcoin Address, the confirmation count, maybe a memo field, etc.
All good ideas. The thing that is a bit tricky is the confirmations I think. People are used to a world where the money is in their account or it is not, where there is nothing in between, but with Bitcoins it's different. There is really no reason that you have to wait for 6 confirmations if the money came from someone you know so it seems unnecessary to let people wait for an hour before letting them spend their money. I was thinking of displaying a yellow progressbar until it reaches 6 confirmations and then change to a green "confirmed", but I'm really not sure about this yet. Should people be able to spend their money while it is "in progress"? Will that be confusing? Suggestions are welcome. |
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You have a lot of legacy article and video that explain that there will never be more bitcoin in circulation.
Remember, we are still very early in the life of Bitcoin, few people have actually heard about Bitcoin. We can't let "legacy article and video" stop us from making a change at this point if the change is for the better in the long run. It is possible to make this change now because there is not a lot of different clients, e-wallets etc. out there. People have read that bitcoin will be limited to 21 millions. The important thing to explain is that the number of Bitcoins is limited. It would be confusing anyway to state that the supply is limited to 21 million BTC if the unit that people are used to is mBTC or μBTC. |
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Bumping this to give people a chance to vote before it closes.
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The GUI is excellent. I am thinking 'Checking' and 'Savings' are the basic accounts. They can add more accounts if they want to.
Thanks, yes that's exactly my thought. For wallet encryption are you going to use TrueCrypt? Seems like there is some built in wallet encryption on its way into bitcoind. If so, I'll probably use that, otherwise TrueCrypt, 7-zip or whatever does the job. |
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Cool, looks nice. Like you said, we are not targeting exactly the same users, which is good. I'm sure both projects will be useful. Let's exchange ideas down the line. |
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Well, the thing is that I'll be able to develop this using C# and WPF a lot quicker
How do you intend to interface with the Bitcoin network and/or client from C#? You want to reimplement the core layer as well? From what I understand bitcoind has a HTTP JSON-RPC API that I can use. |
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Why are you showing USD balances? That is an incredibly bad idea. Yeah, never mind that, it was just a limitation in the sketching tool. It should of course be the Bitcoin symbol. Other than that, not bad. Note that the bitcoin address won't change unless the client is coded to create another after receiving a transaction. I'll make sure that it does that. |
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I don't think making a Windows-only client is a good idea, though. The same could just as easily be done with Qt (you could start with my GUI as a base) and then it could run on all platforms.
Well, the thing is that I'll be able to develop this using C# and WPF a lot quicker than if I'm gonna learn QT first, and I think that the end product will look better. I might not get as much love on these forums, but I'll reach at least 80% of the Average Joes that I'm trying to reach. Thanks for the support anyway, and good luck with your client! |
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I agree, but I don't think dropbox or online storage should be a requirement, but optional.
Sounds reasonable. There should probably be a "storage option" at the login screen where the user can pick Google, DropBox, Local etc., with an explanation for each, and a warning if you choose "Local" that if your hard drive crashes your money will be gone. |
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There have been many different threads about Bitcoin being too complicated to attract the general public. I'll start writing a client that tries to address a number of these issues and it would be great to get some feedback and suggestions. Here are some sketches and thoughts. One problem is that it's too complicated for users to keep their money safe, they shouldn't have to care about that wallet.dat file. Still, they might not be comfortable using online wallets (at least not until som big, reputable company starts offering them). So, my plan is to use dropbox.com, google docs or some similar service where the user has an account to store their files. The wallet file is stored in their own account, but the client does the uploading/downloading transparently. So, when starting the client, the user enters their dropbox/google/whatever credentials, the client then downloads the wallet and presents it.   The status of a transfer is visualized by some simple progress indicator, rather than "78 confirmations" that doesn't mean anything to a regular user. The connection to the network is indicated as "poor", "good", "very good" or something similar, instead of "8 connections". For storing a wallet with lots of money you might want higher security so there will be an option of securing an account so that the wallet file is encrypted before it's uploaded to the cloud service. This means that the user will have to enter a separate password when accessing that account, so that the client can decrypt the file.  The constantly changing bitcoin address should be hidden as much as possible from the user. A contact list where the user can send/receive money to/from friends should be easy to use. If the user wants some money from a friend he can click "request payment" which will send an e-mail to the friend with an URI that can be clicked. The friend will click the link which will open up his client with a confirmation box of sending amount X to the user (just the user's name, not the bitcoin address is presented). The bitcoin address is saved by the client so that the friend can send another payment to our user, but my hope is that we can get people to use the "request payment" flow, so that new bitcoin addresses can be generated for each transfer.  I will start developing this, it will be a windows program since that is what I know best, and I will make it open source when it is released so that people can be confident that it doesn't do anything shady. If anyone wants to use this to develop a similar client for another OS, please just go ahead! Let us know about it in this thread. As long as the wallet/contacts files are stored in a well defined place in the user's google/dropbox account, it would be easy for a user to access the same accounts from a computer, a smart phone etc. Please suggest improvements to my ideas and add other things that will make Bitcoin more user friendly. I will do this in my spare time so it will not be ready tomorrow. If anyone wants to encourage me feel free to send something to 17FwVHLYS9D2S1v7KeXiY7r4VaB91dpcfa  |
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On MtGox, the Euro bank transfer sucks because I have to send in EUR which is tricky for me, also with those there will be extortinoate bank fees involved.
Are you sure about that? The UK is part of SEPA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area) and when I did a SEPA transfer from Sweden to MtGox there were no big fees. I could simply choose "SEPA transfer" in my internet bank, specify that it should be in euro and send it. |
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Commited!
Bitcoin needs a good Q&A site. These forums are useful for discussions but it's hard to find the good answers buried in a pile of not-so-good answers.
25% complete
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Bitcoin of course does away with the need for banks to create money (and maybe for banks in general)
"Commercial bank money" is created because someone lends their central bank money (deposits it) to the bank. People receive interest on their money because they let the bank use them. The need for this will not go away because of Bitcoins. "Commercial bank money" could just as well be created using deposits of Bitcoins instead of deposits of central bank money. |
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I would like to see a census on this also. If a vote was taken would it be implemented by everyone? Its about time this was agreed upon....
When this poll ( http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=13144.0) is over I propose that we continue in the Development & Technical Discussion forum and decide what (if something) should done. |
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This is a horrible idea. Just think of what the final number of BTC will then be: 21 trillion. Not one person can wrap his mind around it, It's not like people will talk a lot about the total number of Bitcoins (do you often here people discussing how big the US monetary base is?). What's interesting is how many Bitcoins I have, how many Bitcoins you have, how many Bitcoins that computer costs etc. Those numbers will not be trillions. |
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Maybe this is nitpicky, but I don't like the term "virtual currency." It suggests that Bitcoin is not real in some way. WoW gold is more like a virtual currency. A better term is "digital currency," because it is indeed a real money, it just happens to be digital. Great suggestion. One of the many small steps that will help Bitcoin gain credibility. |
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