Welcome to The Stack CafeTM — Blockstack: Graphite dApp Update – New UI and Feature: Vault Storage… We recently heard some great news. The team at Graphite – the dApp that can be used on the Blockstack ecosystem to create documents sheets, conversations and more without giving up privacy – just pushed out an update to its dApp – Vault storage.
Go to the Graphite landing page to learn more about the application and to sign into the application via your Blockstack browser (a user will need the Blockstack Browser to avail yourself of the full functionality of the Blockstack ecosystem).
The update includes a refreshed user interface along with a great new feature – Vault. The Vault gives the user of the application the ability to encrypt all of the his/her/its files with the encryption protocol provided by the Blockstack ecosystem and infrastructure (we will provide more on encryption via Blockstack in a subsequent post).
Not only can you now encrypt images, videos, .pdfs, and other files, the user can now download files and share the encrypted files with other users of the application and the Blockstack ecosystem (internet).
As shown above, the update offers a fresh, new and nice layout with easy access to the tabs used to create a new Document or Sheet, add a new Contact and open a conversation with someone (one of your contacts – peer to peer “P2P”) and now use the vault storage. And everything done through the use of the Blockstack browser and application is decentralized, encrypted (user control), and secure thanks to Blockstack’s ecosystem. Next, we will take a look at the new feature – Vault.
Note: If you do not have the Blockstack browser, please see this link (note – to enable the full functionality of any dApp (including Graphite) built for the Blockstack ecosystem (e.g., building a new internet, a decentralized internet, re-decentralizing the internet) you need to use the Blockstack browser). And, if you need more information on Graphite and how to use it, please visit this link.
Now, let’s take a look at the new Vault feature and how it works. Once you are signed into the Graphite dApp via your blockstack browser using your blockstack ID (e.g., abc.id), you should see the landing page shown below.
From that page, choose the Vault tab and you will be directed to the “Your Files” (vault) page as shown below.
At this juncture, you will then be able to upload a file to be stored securely with encryption (only for users access). As shown, we have already upload a file that has been encrypted and securely stored in our storage environment (note: for now it is storage provided by Blockstack – but it is encrypted and only we can access it). Below you can see the file – a screenshot image – we uploaded to our vault.
Now, if we want to share that file, we can click on the share icon (see above and not the cloud download arrow icon), and the next screen to appear is the sharing screen as shown below. At this point, we can add a contact, or choose one of our existing contacts that we want to share the file with. For example, we could select the developer of Graphite – jehunter5811.id.
As shown in the screenshot below – Once we have clicked the “share” button, the user will get a pop-up screen confirming the item has been shared or it might say to tell the user to sign-in to access the new shared file. Success and sharing has now been completed between users of the application – securely and encrypted (only for those two IDs – thestackcafe.id shared with jehunter5811.id).
And, you can see that we also downloaded the file too by selecting the cloud with the down arrow (see bottom of this screen shot below – Blockstack1.png file downloaded and ready to be saved or whatever…)
Remember, per Blockstack – all information or data you create or store using a dApp via your Blockstack Browser is encrypted and securely stored in a decentralized manner. And, it is only accessible by you and only those you give access to your data and information.
We have successfully accessed the Graphite application via the Blockstack browser, opened the Vault, downloaded a previously uploaded file, and shared a previously uploaded file with Graphite developer Justin hunter (jehunter5811.id). Hey, Justin Hunter, go check out the file we shared with you. Way to go Team Graphite and go Blockstack!
Other helpful links for more information on Blockstack include:
Blockstack – the new decentralized application platform and ecosystem for the decentralized/re-decentralized internet (dApp, dApps, blockchain, bitcoin, distributed and Web 3.0)
Note: If you do not have the Blockstack browser, please see this link (note – to enable the full functionality of any dApp built for the Blockstack ecosystem (e.g., building a new internet, decentralized, a decentralized internet, distributed, bitcoin, distributed, blockchain, re-decentralizing the internet) you need to use the Blockstack browser).
For more on All things DeveloperTM, see this link here. For more on the engineering meeting at Blockstack, please visit the forum. Blockstack makes the internet you use better!TM
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