We’re thrilled to announce the release of Starport v0.11. This is a game-changing update that will make it easier than ever for you to build a blockchain app. With this release, we’re providing an online dev environment that has Starport pre-installed, letting you start writing business logic immediately.
v0.11 is a massive update, and other highlights include experimental Stargate support, comprehensive documentation with the Starport Handbook, a refreshed UI scaffold that includes full wallet functionality, full CRUD support for Starport generated types, and a Raspberry Pi image that lets you quickly set up validators.
Online development environment
With Starport v0.11, we’re introducing a new developer productivity tool: an in-browser Starport development environment. No more having to install Go, Node.js, and NPM — all of Starport’s prerequisites are automatically included. This dev environment will always have the latest version of Starport installed, as well as introductory documentation to help you start hacking. Try it now:
https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/tendermint/starport/
This online dev environment comes with a powerful text editor and command-line interface, allowing you to experiment with your ideas and work on both blockchain code and the frontend app. To save your project, just fork this workspace into your own Github account using the fork button in the sidebar.
What about local development? Starport will always support local blockchain development as a first class experience — we know how much you care about your favorite tools. This online dev environment is aimed at lowering the barrier for new developers. It also makes blockchain development more portable — you can now code from any device that has a web browser.
Updated web UI scaffold
Starport now includes an updated web UI scaffold that features a better sign in form, a list of token balances, and a simple wallet interface lets you and your users transfer tokens between accounts.
Most importantly, source code of these components has been extracted into a separate library that can be imported into any Vue project with just a few lines of code. This allows us to update these components independently of Starport CLI and provide more frequent updates.
Experimental Stargate support
The next upcoming version of the Cosmos SDK is v0.40, codenamed “Stargate”. SDK v0.40 comes with a bevy of incredible features including IBC, the superpower to send tokens between chains. Given that Starport is a developer ergonomics layer on top of the SDK, we’ve been looking ahead to support this v0.40 release. We’re excited that Starport now includes experimental support for Stargate-based blockchains.
starport app github.com/foo/bar --sdk-version stargate
To scaffold a chain that is based on SDK v0.40 instead of v0.39, just add the `—sdk-version stargate` flag shown above. Subsequent commands, like `starport type` will scaffold the necessary proto files, required for SDK v0.40’s new gRPC API.
Note that the IBC modules are not automatically included in this scaffold, but they can be manually added. In the next Starport release, we’ll have full IBC support and we’ll provide detailed documentation on how you can make inter-blockchain token transfers.
Other improvements
These following improvements are specific to the default version of Starport, SDK v0.39, aka “Launchpad”.
The `starport type` command now includes update, set and delete operations. These operations should provide you with a good foundation for writing CRUD-based business logic.
The default scaffold now also includes a Github action that builds a chain-specific Raspberry Pi image. Once built, it’s ready to be flashed on the device. This action simplifies the initial setup of your blockchain and ensures that your chain and its community are fully independent of cloud providers.
