Weekly Dev Update #60

Hey Y’all, 

This week we finished up with the release of the Loki Messenger Android application. We also released the Loki Binance Bridge which was developed over the past few months and has now been open sourced on Github. Over the next few weeks we really want to focus on improving the user experience in Loki Messenger, and add lots of new and highly requested features like group messages, attachments etc… 

Loki Core

• Demote error message for missing quorum in handling non-standard txes: https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/769.
• Immutable checkpoint API update: https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/773.
• Use defer on scope exit to remove some repetitive code: https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/771.
• Add progress meter to pop_blocks : https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/770
• Reject new votes that can be slipped through the syncing phase at startup: https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/768.
• Add missing LOKI_RPC_DOC_INTROSPECT annotations: https://github.com/loki-project/loki/pull/776.

---

Lokinet

If you’re on our Discord you can catch Jeff, the lead developer of LLARP, live streaming as he codes at https://www.twitch.tv/uguu25519. He typically streams on Tuesday mornings, 9am – 12pm Eastern (US) time.

What’s going on this week with Lokinet: 

Lokinet is now feature frozen and in pre-release testing.  We’ve frozen the code to any new features and are testing it internally using various network environments.  The Lokinet team’s focus right now is to get the 0.5.0 release out and working; we’re putting off any major changes and improvements until a stable release is out the door.  This week has seen several fixes to minor issues found so far.

While we had intended for Lokinet to use IPv6 routing internally, testing revealed some problems with this approach (particularly in the non-Linux implementations), so we have deferred that change to a future release.  

Note: this isn’t a change to require IPv6 connectivity for Lokinet, but just for Lokinet virtual addresses to be IPv6 based.

Changelog:

• Add link-relay status messages and delivery feedback: these PRs use the recently refactored router code to allow signalling of where a Lokinet connection fails along the connection path: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/732, https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/737.
• Run main in its own thread and set its process name: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/734.
• Various fixes to:
  • DHT exploration: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/741.
  • Testnet crash fix: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/740.
  • Direct snode-to-snode traffic fix: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/742.
  • Fix socket leaks, path builds, IPv4/v6 interoperability fix, remove internal connection limit: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/747.
• Automated test build system improvements:  https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/743,  https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/744.

New/Updated/Pending Pull Requests:

• Build system fixes for MacOS and Windows: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/746, https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/748, https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/749.
• Build testing with (pre-release) next-gen gcc version: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/746.
• Updated and additional Windows fixes:  https://github.com/loki-project/loki-network/pull/715.

---

Loki Messenger Desktop 

• Add a toggle option for typing indicators; use short ttl for them: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/377.
• Bold user profile name and truncate pubkeys: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/375.
• Only send read receipts for users that are your friends: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/374.
• Separate mainnet and testnet: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/371.
• Add button to paste messenger pubkey from clipboard: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/370.
• Send message ID to public chats, save messages with the same ID when receiving public chats: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/369.
• Show correct error when an invalid timestamp is present: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/373.
• Enforce code styling: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger/pull/368.

Storage Server

• Work in progress for testnet flag: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-storage-server/pull/253.

---

Loki Binance DEX Bridge 

This week we released the Loki Binance Bridge which facilitates swaps between Loki and B-Loki. You can test it out and get trading on the the Binance DEX right now by accessing https://lokibridge.com. Read about how it works on our blog: https://loki.network/2019/08/06/loki-now-on-binance-dex/.

• All commits for the Loki Bridge can be found here: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-binance-bridge/commits/master.
• Fix autoswap balance issues: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-binance-bridge/pull/2.
• Include better error messages: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-binance-bridge/pull/4.
• Wait before running autoswaps: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-binance-bridge/pull/3/files.

---

Loki Messenger on Mobile (iOS and Android)

This week we also released the APK for Loki Messenger Android which means Loki Messenger is now available on all major platforms! We will be working hard to iron out bugs and improve the experience of using messenger over the coming months.

• Work on Loki Messenger for Android can be found in these repositories: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger-android-core/commits/master, https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger-android/commits/master.

• Work on Loki Messenger for iOS can be found here: https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger-ios/commits/dev, https://github.com/loki-project/loki-messenger-ios-pods/commits/master.

---

Thanks,  

Kee