Diffuse is a decentralized music player. These are some notes / feedback on the Alpha version https://alpha.diffuse.sh. We also did an interview with Steven about Diffuse @icidasset
@boris did this test on his Mac desktop using the web-based version in Chrome. These are some notes and feedback about the process and user flow of selecting IPFS.
After clicking “Sign In”, you can get a message asking “Where would you like to
store your encrypted data?” – with “favourites, settings, etc” in smaller grey text. There is a list of choices. IPFS is hidden underneath the ellipse alongside Textile.
Note: it could be more clear what I’m being asked here. I think “Where would you like to store your settings?”. I had no clue what encrypted data meant, I actually thought this was a music step. Maybe a “?” icon here telling me more about what sort of settings.
Selecting IPFS then asks “Where’s your IPFS API located?”. localhost:5001 is pre-filled.
Note: I happen to have the IPFS Mac OS X desktop app. I started it up. It didn’t work, even though it was running.
I did some googling around to figure out what was going on – and I’m fairly familiar with IPFS. Eventually I figured out that I had to allow Diffuse to access the local API, under settings.
Under Access-Control-Allow-Origin I added https://alpha.diffuse.sh and then it worked. I may have restarted it.
Note: if you click on “More info” at the very bottom of the screen, it goes to the Diffuse about page – which does have an entry about adding this item.
Next message is “I need a passphrase to encrypt your data.”.
There was a long string pre-filled in greyed out text.
I typed something in – I think I’ve forgotten what it is now! – and it told me that it wasn’t long enough? Maybe it said 16 characters? or words? I typed some more.
I thought this part was interesting. It was here that I made the connection that my settings data was on IPFS. It says “data for this application” – maybe “settings data” – or be clear and say that it’s favourites and preferences and whatever else is stored.
I skipped a couple steps here. This was me adding some music via an IPFS directory hash.
I happen to have a directory filled with audio files that I used for testing Diffuse previously.
I didn’t know what the checkboxes did so I left them unchecked.
Note: for both settings and for this addition of music, being able to add a DNS link, like mymusic.bmann.ca or bmann.fission.tools/mymusic would obviously be something that I could actually remember. I think the IPFS ecosystem as a whole has to figure this out.
What don’t you like about this screen?
