CryptoCoinExplorer


The CCE3 test has moved to test version 3.98!!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262539.msg3177164#msg3177164

All test explorers are now running test version 3.98

New in this version:

Complete database integrity and automated recovery system
Complete removal of all per coin custom coding in the modules.
General clean-up and tighter code. Started basic code comment documentation.

Primecoin
http://xpm.cryptocoinexplorer.com

Goldcoin
http://gold.cryptocoinexplorer.com

Federation Credits
http://ufc.cryptocoinexplorer.com

Klingon Darsek
http://ked.cryptocoinexplorer.com - Temporary Down until KED relauch

Gold Pressed latinum
http://gpl.cryptocoinexplorer.com

Cthulhu Offering
http://off.cryptocoinexplorer.com

BottleCaps

http://cap.cryptocoinexplorer.com

Cubits

http://qbt.cryptocoinexplorer.com




I believe a separate thread is needed for the development of CCE III, as it is a large project not only in the sense of CCE, but as a new development tool for other developers.

CryptoCoin Explorer III  Update:

History:

CCE started as the PPC explorer when PPC was released in August 2012.
Note: About three weeks until the PPC one year anniversary August 16!

Terracoin and Freicoin followed as they were released.

The CryptoCoin Explorer site came online November 14, 2012

Novacoin, BBQ, Feathercoin and Bytecoin became part of CCE.

Since this April: Bitbar, Digitalcoin, CHNCoin, JKC, Franko, Goldcoin, Worldcoin and Craftcoin have been added.

CCE is now spread across two decent sized VPS.

CCE has a Alexa global rank of  280,031. Although I do not have any detailed metrics installed on the site, I have seen estimates of 5000 – 10000 hits a day. The site sends out about 10GB of data a day over both servers.

A couple of months ago I updated the look and feel of CCE which I called CCE 2.

About a month ago I decided to write completely new explorer software from scratch.  There were a few additions to the API being worked on and the bigger issue of resources versus the number of coins coming on the market. I also wanted to provide a one stop site for coin information as it became harder to search and find information for all the new coins.

It became clear shortly after I put the first few explorers online, CCE became a trusted source for block chain information. I take that responsibility seriously,  and part of the reasons for the rewrite is to give the community an even larger source of information in both number of coins and quantity of information. I also want both new and experienced alt-coin users to have a place to go and get links to official sources of information.

Open versus Closed source:

Eventually part of the new explorer will become open source. I am writing a tool system that can be used to create other applications that depend on block chain information. This system will gather data from the coin daemon, populate a database and provide a basic query system. It will be adaptable to any information one can get from the coin daemon and its configuration will almost be completely database driven. The configuration file will only need to point the system to the database it is to work with.
The ultimate goal will automatically sort the information keys it receives from the daemon based on column names and disregard keys that do not have columns. The system written so far does work that way, but code customization is still needed at this point for embedded objects in the JSON output of the daemon (Embedded lists for example. Python sees them as a list object inside a Dict. object.)

The final system will let anybody setup a customized block chain database by simply setting up tables and columns. A configuration table would tell it what commands to issue and in which tables to sort and store the results. I also believe this table will be where one defines the objects within objects stored in the key values it gets from the daemon.

One could build any alt-coin application from it, including of course a block explorer.  I will be keeping the CCE block explorer application of this tool private. Though I will probably provide a basic block explorer example in the source.


And so on.....

CCE is not run by a team of developers. I am the sole developer of CCE. Although CCE and this new project are quite large projects I have taken on, I believe it will benefit the alt-coin community greatly.


This also means, aside from donations, I am the sole financial support for CCE. I appreciate all the donations received and I am not writing this to beg for more donations (though they would be extremely helpful). Donations fall way short of costs in both servers and my time.
I have tried to acquire funding through the opening of pools (cryptocoinmine.com), but the pools have ended up losing money rather then gaining it. I am going to shut down CryptoCoin mine completely except for the Goldcoin pool as the Goldcoin community has shown outstanding support for the pool. I may open a Primecoin pool at a later date after the parameters of how such a pool would work best is established.

This means I am going to move to advertising on the new explorers. In the past I have been very much against it, but I see no other choice at this time. I will keep them them as small and unobtrusive as possible and my plan is only one advertisement banner at the bottom of each page. I have made no decisions on who I am going to use for advertising, but it is coming in CCE III.

I will setup a website mock-up of the look of CCE III sometime in the near future. Until then, back to the world of getting coin daemons, python applications and databases to play nice with each other.   

Quick update:

The database propagation and update system is finished with the alpha stage and will move to beta as soon as the web server application is ready for beta.

I am working on the web server now, so it will not be long before a beta version is up and live on the internet.

The beta will be a PrimeCoin explorer. The first beta will be an explorer only with no API. I feel it is better to get the bugs out of the general explorer before adding the API to narrow down the troubleshooting as the API for the most part is a JSON extension of the explorer.

The web server is written around CherryPY. This means the Beta will be a port address as I do not want to deal with Apache/CGI wrappers. I would rather troubleshoot head on and not discover issues later when Apache is removed from the servers and CCE goes full CherryPy.

I am hoping to have it up before the end of the week, but I am hopeful it will be up within a couple of days. The web server development has hit its stride and is moving along smoothly.

Phase two of testing the new explorer design has begun.

http://cryptocoinexplorer2.com:5555

This version has all (I Hope  ),the logic issues from test version one fixed and working for the basic explorer.

The address page is still limited to the running balance of the address. However, test version 3 is already well under way and it will have the full transaction history of the address available along with the "spent output' field on the transaction page. The search system should be in place (At most by test version 3.5), but manual searching can be done by simply observing the url addresses a bit and placing your own values in place of the explorer generated values in the url.

Test version 4 is slated to incorporate most of the 'frills' features on the Homepage of the explorer.

Test version 5 will be in the incorporation of the API.

The API is not active yet, we are still a few stages away from testing it.

You are right about the color scheme, I thought it needed some tweaking myself, so I have redone some of the theme with lighter colors and plan to add a Nav. bar across the top of the pages.





New testing announcement:

I will be parallel testing the CCE explorer rewrite with Goldcoin along with the current testing with Primecoin starting a bit later today. I am generating the database now and when ready I will upload everything to the CCE server. I will then provide the address for using(testing) the Goldcoin version of the new explorer code.

The current ABE based Goldcoin explorer will remain running unchanged until all the testing is complete and all of CCE gets converted.

Just remember, these are TEST versions and are subject to go down, crash or be inaccurate. Although inaccuracy is unlikely as the first two stages of testing have weeded out the few serious logic issues in the basic explorer. One always has the current ABE based explorer(GLD) or Block Crawlers(XPM) to compare to. 

I have a question for coin developers:

How long does it take the daemon to realize it has an orphan block in its chain and insert the correct block?

I have run into an issue where the daemon will trip a database update through block notify and the db update module will query the daemon for the block information and get an orphan block.

The solution I want to use is to simply back compare the block hash stored in the database to the daemon response to getblockhash a second time. If they are not the same update the database entry for that block and related transactions with the new accurate information.

I could simply back check every update, but that will leave false block information on the block explorer until the next block is solved.

Is the correction quicker? Could I back check right after entering the block information, or could the routine request a block hash, wait a couple of seconds, and request again before updating the database?

The only problem I see to the later is the super fast coins (10-25 second target times).

Test Version 3 is live for Primecoin.

Besides many optimizations and behind the scenes improvements, the SEARCH QUERIES ARE UP! 

Left to do before Version 3.5:

- Finish the ledger interface to back trace and display the transactions associated with the account. As of now it only shows the current balance.
- Finish the 'Spent Output' display in the transaction page.

I have decided to try and solve the orphan block issue by placing a 20 second delay between Block Notify and when the database management module queries the daemon for the current block/transaction information.
I am hoping that 20 seconds is enough time for the daemon to discover it has an orphan block and store/report the correct information.

CCEIII still needs many visual improvements. These will come with version 4 as the extra features are rolled out.


I will work on getting the Goldcoin CCEIII test server up to version 3, and back up for testing ASAP.

Both the test explorers will be down for a bit while they catch up from the last database backup.

This issue was strictly dumbassery on my part, and not a bug in the test explorers. 

Test version 3.4 of the Primecoin Explorer is online.

Two things to note:

Some of the fields have changed in the Home page and Block list. This is in preparation to move to a Blockchain Info general type of theme.

Account Ledger is activated, but with a couple of restrictions. The ledger will only show the last 10 transactions, and because of this only the credit or debit amount is shown. The balance field would be too confusing without the full ledger.

The search algorithm for the ledger is rather complex and needs some major optimization to be practical. I have a few ideas on how to accomplish this and it is the next major hurdle to overcome.

The spent output feature will also be added next. It requires another field in the database. The code is ready, it is just a matter of rebuilding the database with the new field used.