Growing into Web3 with Urbit Visor
By building the fundamental tools required for web developers to get started, dcSpark has opened the development levee for Urbit. A one stop shop for Urbit is now available for developers to build apps which leverage their JS/TS skills, so we can all grow into our personal computers.
Below you’ll find introductions to our 3 guides which shrink the gap between web2 and web3. Web apps, chrome extensions, and unified auth system are the core use cases examples which are now possible thanks to Urbit Visor transforming the web browser into a first class Urbit Client.
Setting up the Dev Environment
Beyond your favorite JS/TS environment, you will need to have a running Urbit Ship and Urbit Visor installed in a chromium-based browser.
Building Urbit Web Apps
The first in a series, this guide sets the fundamentals of building web apps with Urbit Visor. Urbit Web Apps interact with an Urbit Ship through the API and Data Permissions management of Urbit Visor. With this stack developers don’t need to speak Urbit’s functional language Hoon in order to bring utility to users. The guide leads users through building an Urbit Notes application.
For a quick example of an existing web app out in the wild, check out Urbit Dashboard. With this app users can check on their ship’s activity and perform basic administrative functions to be sent to the ship for execution.
Building UV Extensions
Building web apps that interact with Urbit is great, but bringing these new powers along with you as you browse web 2 opens the doors for completely new UX experiences. Building UV extensions allows the power of Urbit Visor to be active on whichever page the user is visiting. Within this guide you will build a basic note taking extension which stores your notes inside a notebook on your Ship. For a more full featured example of what is possible with this structure we’ve built Twitter UV, which is used to share Tweets to groups or personal notebooks.
Authenticate with Urbit ID
One of the promises of the Urbit ID system is that users will be able to enjoy life with a single user ID, with a single password no matter what service. With Authenticate with Urbit ID it’s now possible to begin populating that dream. No more registrations, no more password resets, no more broken web forms with weird password requirements for users. A user which has Urbit Visor will be able to sign into your web app with a single click of a button. That’s great for users, but it’s also a dream for developers since it’s much easier to do than standard web 2 authentication stacks.
What will you build with tools from dcSpark?
At dcSpark we grow ecosystems and we’re inviting you to build with us. Plant your projects in this new domain and leverage the benefits of Urbit to build new kinds of apps and extensions that no one has ever seen before.
- Urbit Group: ~havbex/dcspark
- dcSpark Discord
- dcSpark Twitter
- dcSpark Telegram
Written by: ~ripnyt-ripnyt
