Alpha 4
Once again, testers are requested to continue to “test everything” with testcoins and report bugs using the bugbase link since the wallet is not yet stable and testers using real money are doing so at their own risk.
According to the official release notes, the new version addresses the following:
“This Alpha4 release is the 'multisig' release where we have finished automatizing multisig actions so they don't need copy pasting of funny scripts…This marks the end of the 'big implementations' and now enter a stage where we will be focusing more on hardening and final stabilization and GUI, as well as refactoring the architecture to make it more flexible and modular.”
The alpha 4 release took longer than expected “because we needed a bit of relaxing after months of intensive coding,” said the dev team, “but also because there has been a lot going on behind the scenes.”
These behind the scenes developments include the development of a new unsystem forum, where dark wallet will also be discussed and translating the wiki and main unsystem pages into Farsi, Catalan and Spanish. This means that the beta version is on the horizon “although we're not quite there yet,” the devs stated in the release notes.
What’s New?
The alpha 4 version of Dark Wallet focuses on delivering multisig automation so users do not have to manually sign multikeys. Prior to this, users had to copy and paste odd scripts for multisig signing feature to work. Here are the most noticeable changes for alpha 4:
• Multisig operations now use Lobby communication tools to exchange and automate tasks between fund managers.
• The GUI is noticeably snappier and more polished with smoother transitions between pages. The rotating icon is an unexpected Easter egg.
• Github commits are automatically announced in the DarkWallet IRC, #darkwallet at irc.freenode.net
The mechanics of lobby pairing have made it possible for multisignature signings to be automatically sent to other users, which also allow the signatures to be propagated to other fund members of a specific wallet. Now when funds are created, they are also sent to paired owners. The peers are notified and can accept the funds, which allows wallet importation to occur. The spent funds are then propagated to mask them.
This is done by the peers signing the funds and, thus, propagating the signatures. When enough signatures are collected by a certain peer, they will broadcast the transaction, which stops the propagation, as the funds have been successfully transferred in secret.
Future plans
With the basic features of Dark Wallet now in place, it is expected that the development process will now focus on security, stability, and user-friendliness. With security obviously being the biggest concern for users, testers are encouraged to “try to break the software in any and all ways.” Moreover, according to Lobby rumors, the ability to add distributed network nodes is also coming and this will be much easier to do in the near future.
Full release notes are available here.