bitbox-wallet-app

README

BitBox Wallet App

This repo contains the source code for the BitBox Wallet App and related tools.

Tech Stack

The wallet UI is a preact single page webapp. It sources its data from the backend written in Go.

The Desktop app is a static C++ Qt5 program containing only a WebEngineView, displaying the UI.

Static assets are sourced from a Qt rcc file, and the dynamic data is bridged from Go with WebChannels.

The Go library is compiled as a C library which exposes two functions only: one to set up the bridge, and one to invoke calls in the backend.

Similarly to the Desktop variant, the Go library can be statically compiled and added to an Android Studio / XCode project. This is not part of this repo yet.

Directories (subject to change)

• cmd/: Go projects which generate binaries are here.
• cmd/servewallet/: a development aid which serves the static web ui and the http api it talks to. See below.
• vendor/: Go dependencies, managed by the dep tool (see the Requirements section below).
• backend/coins/btc/electrum/: A json rpc client library, talking to Electrum servers.
• backend/devices/bitbox/: Library to detect and talk to digital bitboxes. High level API access.
• backend/coins/btc/: Local HD wallet, sourcing blockchain index from an arbitrary backend. Manages addresses, outputs, tx creation, and everything else that a wallet needs to do.
• backend/: The library that ties it all together. Uses the above packages to create a wallet talking Electrum using the BitBox for signing, and serve a high level HTTP API to control it.
• frontends/qt/: the C++/Qt5 app which builds the wallet app for the desktop.
• frontends/web/: home of the preact UI.

Set up the development environment

The below instructions assume a unix environment.

Requirements

• Go version 1.9.2.
• Yarn - for managing the web UI deps.
• Qt5
  • Install via https://www.qt.io/download, also install WebEngine, and put qmake and rcc into your PATH.

Make sure $GOPATH is set and $GOPAH/bin and $GOROOT/bin is in your $PATH

Clone/move this repo to $GOPATH/src/github.com/digitalbitbox/bitbox-wallet-app ($GOPATH is usually ~/go).

Only the first time, set up the project with make init.

ElectrumX Backend

The servers used are configurable in the app settings. Currently, when running the app in devmode (make servewallet), the config is ignored and servers on Shift's devserver are used. The hosts/ports/certs of those are currently hardcoded.

Development Workflow

Local Development

Run make servewallet and make webdev in seperate terminals.

Watch and build the UI

Run make webdev to develop the UI inside a web browser (for quick development, automatic rebuilds and devtools). This serves the UI on localhost:8080. Changes to the web code in frontends/web/src are automatically detected and rebuilt.

Run the HTTP API

Run make servewallet to compile the code and run servewallet. servewallet is a devtool which serves the HTTP API.

Update go dependencies

Run dep ensure to update dependencies.

Update npm dependencies

Check outdated dependencies cd frontends/web && yarn outdated and yarn upgrade modulename@specificversion.

Production build

To build the standalone desktop app, run make qt-linux inside Docker (see below) or make qt-osx on a Mac. Cross compilation is not supported yet.

CI

Run make ci to run all static analysis tools and tests.

Build the UI

To statically compile the UI, run make generate again, which compiles the web ui into a compact bundle.

Develop using Docker

The Dockerfile provides a Ubuntu container with the whole environment preconfigured. To set it up, run make dockerinit, which builds the Docker image (this takes a while).

After that, make dockerdev enters the container (a shell inside an Ubuntu virtual machine), where you can perform the same steps as in the previous section (make servewallet and make webdev). Running make dockerdev multiple times shares the same container. You can edit the code in your usual editor in the host and compile inside the container.

For the first time after make dockerinit, enter the image with make dockerdev and run make init to initialize the repo.

To execute make servewallet and make webdev insider the container, but from the host, use this:

$ ./scripts/docker_exec.sh servewallet/webdev