MultiBit

[jim618]

Hi RylandAlmanza,

It won't be for a couple of weeks yet as I am concentrating on tidying up the existing code at the moment. (I don't want to add new code in the run up to Christmas because of Bitcoins for Christmas).

[bitcoinspot.nl]

yeah you might look at the options in the "my wallet" online-wallet from the guys of blockchain.info for some comparison.

Installed the latest version of multibit, works like a charm!
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

Roland.

[jim618]

There is a new release of MultiBit at:

http://multibit.org


Version 0.2.0beta5

Enhancements
+  Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Hindi, Portuguese and Turkish translations added.
+  Minor installer changes.

All the translators are credited in the AUTHORS.txt (in the installation directory or in the app bundle on a Mac)
Thanks to everybody who has contributed their languages files.

[jim618]

Gary and I have put together a wiki with what we propose to put into the next tranche of MultiBit development.
It is here:

https://github.com/jim618/multibit/wiki
 
Please have a review of it and comment if:

• There is something you would like to add
• There is something you would like to remove
• Any implementation ideas that you think are important I address

The wiki is only the very top level at the moment - I am trying to get the overall scope of what to do.
I am expecting to get stuck into it in the New Year and am thinking of (very roughly) the next 3 months work.

Obviously time is always limited so I am trying to get a list which overall will be the most useful.

[jim618]

We now have a Finnish translation for MultiBit.
Thanks to Technomage (on this forum) for providing this translation.

Here is a screenshot:
http://multibit.org/postImages/finnish.png


I plan to add this into the build and produce new installers by the end of Thursday (in time for Christmas !)

Edit: this installer will also have a refresh of all the language files including the Spanish edits this week by freemoney and mrmx.

[freemoney458]

Gary and I have put together a wiki with what we propose to put into the next tranche of MultiBit development.
It is here:

https://github.com/jim618/multibit/wiki
 
Please have a review of it and comment if:

• There is something you would like to add
• There is something you would like to remove
• Any implementation ideas that you think are important I address

Do you have a voting mechanism installed? Just an idea, maybe it is not worth the effort and vulnerable to abuse anyway.

Here are my 'likes' from your plans:
 

• Refresh UI: Lots of good stuff there, especially: 'Exchange' and 'Statement'. I like the idea to make it as close as possible to standard online banking applications when showing the balance and the exchange information. Also replacing 'Receive' with 'Request' is more like to what is really going on and therefore I prefer it.
• Password protection and encryption for the wallet: I think this is one of the top priorities. I did not understand the full concept, though. Can the user select which wallet to encrypt? Will the wallet be encrypted all the time while using MultiBit and only be decrypted partially to get access to the specific private keys needed right before for spending? Will the password be entered only once per session or before each spending or is it choosable? Will there be a (simple) keylogger protection feature like in some online banking accounts (e.g. type in random parts of the password with the mouse)?
• Exporting and importing private keys: Also very important IMHO, in order to give people some backup possibility. I would have liked the export as a swatch additionally to the simple text file, even it is not useful for merchants. This would open the possibility for people to make payments to each other when being disconnected. Of course people need to trust each other not to double spend, and then people would also need to have the possibility to delete an exported key from their wallet to prevent unintentional double spend. Also the date input feature could be supported with a swatch which contains the date to automate the importing of exported keys.
• Sonic swatches and WiFi / Bluetooth: really cool! 

Here is a list of more features I would like, maybe save it for the future:
 

• Option to select a wallet as 'deterministic' like in Electrum. Maybe not stable enough yet for the mainstream audience, but really promising. Maybe something to consider for MultiBit 0.4.x?
• Ability to determine the address where the exchange money will be sent to. I explained the use case behind it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43616.msg564730#msg564730

I am really excited to see your plans happen!
Keep up the good work!
Thanx a lot!

[jim618]

Thanks for your comments freemoney - here are some more thoughts:

• UI - yes the general idea is to make it "similar" to online bank statements as those are widely used and familiar.
• Password protection / encryption - we will probably do something similar to the Satoshi client i.e encrypt the private keys only.   This has the advantage that you can still add spends/ receives to the wallet as those only reference the public key.   As to the exact use cases I have not written those yet.   At this point I am trying to get the overall list of things to work on (and priority).   I will post the google doc URI for the use cases when I write them so that anyone can review/ comment on them.
• export/ import private keys - yes I think I will put in the option to do swatches.
• Deterministic wallets - I think these are excellent but it is a lot of work so I do not plan to work on these in the next chunk of work.   There is nothing in bitcoinj on deterministic wallets yet.  Electrum is doing such an excellent job on pushing the boundaries for deterministic wallets I think they will the 'go to' wallet for these sorts of wallets.
• Exchange addresses - I will make a note of your point on specifying the withdrawal address.   It is early days for the exchange work - I am still figuring out the best architecture to do this and it needs some partnering with exchange devs etc.

2012 should be pretty interesting for bitcoin !

[jim618]

There is a new release of MultiBit available at:

http://multibit.org


Version 0.2.0

Enhancements
+  Finnish translation added and all language files refreshed.

Bug fixes
+  Fixed bug where confirmations for a transaction sent intra-wallets was not always saved on exit and amount not updated.

[jim618]

We now have a Polish translation of MultiBit.
Thanks to Piotr Waśkiewicz ( https://plus.google.com/u/0/115999606270382981571/posts ) for providing this.

Screenshot: http://multibit.org/postImages/polish.png

I will put this in the next release which will be after Xmas. If anybody is doing Bitcoins for Christmas and particularly wants MultiBit in Polish PM me and I will sort something out.

[garyrowe]

Just imagine if we could get the Japanese translation done as well. C'mon someone out there must know someone who could do the translation...

[jim618]

To follow on from Gary - out of the top-ten internet languages (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm) we are currently missing:

• Arabic
• Korean
• Japanese

We have set them all up and they are all ready to go in http://translate.multibit.org.

[waspoza]

Screenshot: http://multibit.org/postImages/polish.png

Looking good, except one slight error. Fixed already.

Nice label on this shot btw. 

[jim618]

We now have a Latvian translation for MultiBit.
Thanks to Arvis Lācis for producing this translation.

Screen shot:
http://multibit.org/postImages/latvian.png


This will appear in the next MultiBit release which will be 0.2.1.   This will appear early next week and will also include Polish.
Also in this release will be the capability to display right-to-left languages e.g. Arabic. (We have 11% Arabic done so you can switch to it in 0.2.1 if you want to see roughly how it will look).

[jim618]

There is a new production release of MultiBit available at:

http://multibit.org

Version 0.2.1
Enhancements
+  Polish, Latvian translations added. Language files refreshed.
+  Now supports right-to-left languages e.g. Arabic.


MultiBit is now translated either completely or substantially into:
+ Simplified Chinese
+ Dutch
+ English
+ Finnish
+ French
+ German
+ Hindi
+ Italian
+ Latvian
+ Norwegian
+ Polish
+ Portuguese
+ Russian
+ Spanish
+ Swedish
+ Turkish

These languages have translators and have been started:
+ Arabic
+ Japanese
+ Thai

These languages are set up in http://translate.multibit.org but we do not have any translators for them yet:
+ Klingon
+ Korean

[jim618]

I have been working on the MultiBit build so that there is now available:

Production releases
This is the stable code for use by the general public.  
It is currently at version 0.2.1 and will only be updated with:
+ More languages
+ Bug fixes

This is the code that is refered to on http://multibit.org in the download links.


Early access (SNAPSHOT) releases
This is the 'bleeding edge' code with all the most recent developments.
Installers are available at:
https://github.com/jim618/multibit/downloads

The early access releases are the ones with 'SNAPSHOT' in - currently at 'MultiBit 0.3.0-SNAPSHOT'.


To make it easier to tell them apart I have included the version number in the shortcut names when you install the SNAPSHOT MultiBit.

[jim618]

Over Christmas, Gary Rowe and I wrote code for MultiBit to deal with browser protocol handlers.
What this means is you can now do the following:

1) In your browser you click on a bitcoin link (e.g. a link to:
        bitcoin:1KzTSfqjF2iKCduwz59nv2uqh1W2JsTxZH?amount=0.5&label=Agile%20Stack

2) If MultiBit is not already started, it will start automatically.

3) MultiBit then switches to the 'Send Bitcoin' form and fills out the form with the bitcoin link details.

4) All you have to do is click 'Send' !


The code is available in the MultiBit SNAPSHOT code at https://github.com/jim618/multibit/downloads
We have tested it on Mac OSX, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.03.4 LTS and are interested in how it works on other platforms.

If you want to try it out, download the SNAPSHOT code and install it.  There is an example bitcoin link (the donation QR code) on Gary's blog here: http://gary-rowe.com/agilestack/

We really like the ability to click on a browser link and for all the payment details to just appear in MultiBit.  Once we iron out any bugs we plan to write up a 'How To' guide so that the other bitcoin clients can save time implementing it.   It is quite fiddly to implement but we think it would be great if all the desktop clients did it.

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

Nice work, jim618!

[freemoney458]

Nice work, jim618!

+1
And really executed fast, considering the blog from GoWest, item 4 ) at http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2011/12/10-most-anticipated-bitcoin-projects.html

Works nicely on my Mac OS X 10.5.8 with latest Firefox browser version.

[jim618]

Thanks Ryland and freemoney458.

We like this feature as it means the normal user does not have to worry about those "ugly addresses" so much.

We *think* it works on Win, Mac, Linux for all of Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari but it is difficult to test all the combinations so we are hoping people will try it out and let us know where there are problems.

Gary is spending some time on MultiBitMerchant at the moment so is going to put the creation of the links into that too.

[gnar1ta$]

You ever consider doing a mobile version of Multibit? Specifically iOS.