DAB V0.2.0: New Canister Registry 🛢️ and support for the Departure Labs NFT standard in DAB-js 🎨

New release is here! Bringing an entirely new registry, the Canister List; as well as a new NFT standard for the standard wrapper in DAB-js.

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DAB — An open internet service.

5 min readSep 30, 2021

It’s release day 😎 It’s time to hit V0.2.0, and bring an entirely new registry (the Canister List); as well as an update to DAB-js to support the Departure Labs NFT Standard (for the NFT List!).

Before we get started with today’s news, we wanted to thank everyone for an awesome first two weeks!

From launch to date, we have new collection additions to the NFT list already (ICelebrity, The Universe…), more to come (Astronauts, ICPuppies, etc…), a new NFT standard supported (Departure Labs) and soon the first collections coming using that standard (NFTStudio’s first drop!).

But, let’s focus on today’s news! With the canister registry to associate metadata profiles to Canister IDs

DAB V0.2.0 — The Canister Registry 🛢️

Say hello to the Canister Registry. This is a canister registry where canister controllers can associate one of their Canister ID’s (e.g. h5aet-waaaa-aaaab-qaamq-cai for Distrikt) to a metadata profile (name, description, logo, front-end or web URL).

Think of it like profiles, but for Canisters! This way, any UI/App that shows Canister IDs in their experience can check in DAB if that Canister ID has set metadata, and show that to users instead of for a much friendlier experience. Instead of just showing a plain canister ID to users.

It’s much more than just improving the UX/UI, it’s about:

Make Canister IDs more discoverable, and easier for users to identify.
Give the user more information to help them trust (or not) a Canister.
Help in the future to differentiate duplicate or impostor canisters.

The best way to show it? Let’s use the first app that will integrate it as an example… Plug! Let’s imagine you want to connect to Portal, and in that process, Portal asks permission to make calls to some canisters through your wallet to enable some of its features…

This is a visual representation, Portal doesn’t require these many canisters.

With DAB, an app can go from showing a list of canister IDs that don’t say much to users about what those canisters are, and if they are safe or not… To a detailed breakdown with name, logo, and drop-down description 😎 (as long as that Canister ID was assigned metadata in DAB, of course).

It’s as easy for a developer as making a call to the Canister Registry using DAB-js, passing the Canister ID to check if it has a profile. If it does, DAB will return all the metadata for the app to show in the UI.

Integrate the Canister List in your app 🧰

Want to integrate DAB’s Canister Registry to show more metadata in your app for Canister IDs? As easy as using the DAB-JS library.

The DAB-js library has been updated to give features to integrate/interact not only the NFT List, but this new Canister List as well.

Same as with the NFT List, using the DAB-js library, now updated with new methods specific to interacting with the Canister Registry as well.

Visit our documentation above for a quick getting started guide for both the new Canister Registry and the NFT List!

Adding Canisters to the Registry! 📪

We have seeded the Canister Registry with an introductory list of known applications and canisters on the IC ecosystem (DSCVR, Distrikt, NNS Ledger, etc…).

However, any person that controls a canister can submit theirs to the Canister Registry and associate them with metadata 😎

At the moment, the submission process is via a form and the DAB team will periodically push new items to the registry; however as we mentioned in our last update, we are working on an automated process for adding Canisters to the registry.

The main challenge is having an automated process to verify the controller of a canister so that only the controller can modify the metadata profile of a Canister ID in the Canister Registry.

DAB-js Update: Departure Labs NFT Standard! 🧪

We also have some news related to the NFT List! If you recall from our last release, any NFT can be listed in DAB, regardless of their standard.

How do we help apps & UIs that integrate the list interact with any NFT regardless of their standard? In the DAB-js library we have an NFT standard wrapper that wraps standards of tokens listed in DAB:

ICPunks
EXT (Extendable Token Standard)
and now… Departure Labs!

DAB-js wraps their different interfaces into a common one, so all apps can interact with the different collections using the same methods, letting DAB-js translate them to the proper standard 🤯

Today we welcome the Departure Labs standard to the wrapper; and to the NFT list! Soon, the first collections are coming to the list, produced by NFT Studio. When they are added (in the next few days), all DAB-integrated apps will have automatic support for these collections and this new standard, thanks to the wrapper.

Wrapping it up 🗞️

That’s all for the day! A new registry is up, now open to submissions; and the NFT List keeps growing by the day with new additions.

Got an NFT collection that’s going to release soon and want it listed in DAB? Or want to add a Canister to the Canister Registry but got doubts? Find us on Twitter and Discord, and we’ll be happy to clear those out for you 👋