Zero Data Apps, remoteStorage, and HyperDraft, an interview with Rosano

@rosano is working on a number of great software projects. We’ll discuss zero data apps, remoteStorage, launchlets, keyboard focus, and more.

Zero Data App is all about listing systems and apps that let you #ownyourdata.

HyperDraft is a note taking app that uses the remoteStorage spec to enable users to own their data.

We’ll find out more about what Rosano is working on, their approach to software for users, asking users for funding, and discuss how these might fit into the Fission platform.

Related Links


Join us Thursday, January 14, 2021 5:00 PM

Audio

Link: https://podcast.fission.app/2021-01-14-rosano-zerodata-apps.m4a

Video

00:00 Intro
03:17 0data: What is it?
09:22 0data: How to get involved?
09:46 Native to web chasm
12:35 0data: Adding an app
14:57 remoteStorage
16:53 Kommit: flashcards app
19:44 Languages and computers
21:43 Hyperdraft: note-taking app
25:43 Digital gardens
27:19 Digital gardens and feeds
29:14 Hyperdraft: pure text experiece
29:46 Files vs no files
31:06 Fission: Storing keys on multiple devices vs single device
33:03 Fission: Account recovery
34:30 Decentralized funding
40:11 Asking for funding indirectly vs directly
41:19 Developer-centric vs user-centric
41:49 Connecting developers with users
42:40 Funding youtubers vs apps
44:25 App metrics
48:57 Building an open payment standard
51:55 remoteStorage: business model
52:51 Fission: adopting the remoteStorage spec
53:53 Fission: decentralizing the stack
57:24 SOLID
58:30 Unhosted
60:44 Comfort level of people with 0data paradigms
63:30 The app equivalent of sourdough / home-grown apps
66:24 Direct customization of existing apps
70:07 Bootstrapping new paradigms
71:50 Popularizing customization
74:06 Making technology invisible
75:01 Make a garden

3 Likes

Really wish I had done a demo, especially of the Fund button… Here’s an overview for anybody who wants to see how it works:

00:00 Intro
00:27 App: Before the document limit
01:37 App: After the document limit
02:10 Form: Intro
02:34 Form: Project
03:03 Form: Identity
04:10 Form: Tier
05:27 Form: Summary
05:42 Form: Payment Processor
07:03 Payment: Metadata
09:57 Payment: Confirmation
12:41 App: After checkout
13:59 App: Entering the confirmation code
15:23 App: Expiry
16:59 Server: Request
17:40 Server: Response
18:25 App: Unlock
19:10 0data
19:29 Conclusion

1 Like

This is a great video to link to! I actually need to make some smaller videos showcasing different things.

Happy to have you come back and demo whenever you like. Maybe next week? It’s Demo Day!

(edited your post to put the vimeo link on its own line, and it auto-embeds)

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For sure, I can give you the file or Vimeo access if you need anything. It was kind of mildly organized stream of consciousness. I was feeling so silly about not demoing anything the whole hour with everyone :man_facepalming:

Would love that. I’ll try to attend, no Fission apps to demo though… I definitely want to come back when Launchlet is more developed to go into detail about customizing apps that are already published.

Actually if you want me to do it for you just let me know the rough sections.

Yeah, doesn’t need to be a Fission app…yet :slight_smile: This is our first one, time to celebrate and meet other makers. I’ll add you to the list.

Yeah, so we should talk about this from a spec perspective, too. Design is always going to be tricky. Basically, like remote storage or whatever, just a well known location where a user css file lives.

In Fission’s case, this would be /private/Apps/[developer]/[appname] and then… user.css? custom.css?

This is all stale now (Sept 2019!) but here’s where we were looking at user preferences:

Let me know what you think or if you’ve written anything down in your Garden about user styling.

Also: I forgot to ask you about cross linking gardens. I vaguely was thinking about Webmentions and also the Web Annotation spec Web Annotation Data Model

I meant, like, for different Fission things I need to turn into videos :slight_smile: This is great to illustrate funding, and very awesome that I can just embed the video in our blog post about our discussion.

I’ve added timestamps to the Vimeo page, will update the description. First time making an actual overview of this for myself—wow that’s a lot of stuff…

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Deal, I’ll demo Hyperdraft.

I don’t have a complete thought yet but my approach is definitely not file-oriented or dependant on a certain way of storing on the filesystem, it’s just simple declarative key/value data, at least for now:

domain: 'example.com'
css: 'background: red;'
javascript: 'console.log("hello")'

So, “file system” isn’t really the right way to think about it / doesn’t matter. It’s all interfaces anyway.

So, on the developer side, webnative.userStylesLoad() or whatever.

On the user side, we can make a CSS Editor App … which lists apps and styles and such.

But we start, in our case, with “go look in the place where your app settings are set and edit the user.css file in there”. Having a file system gives devs / early adopter users a way to start … and we ship Drive with a basic text editor.

Also, I’m definitely not including fragments of JS :slight_smile: Brooke will have a better idea of what threat model works here.

I haven’t looked at user scripts, eg Greasy Fork - safe and useful user scripts – or really done any research on existing standards yet. Consider that TO DO, here’s a wiki page stub User Scripts and Styles

I guess prefer to think of them as first-class documents because Launchlet is built for that, as opposed to settings: it should be highly-visible, malleable, ‘just data’, normal.

I imagined Launchlet as a user script / user style app. I heard it’s terrifyingly unsafe to deal with javascript this way so I will need to consult with someone at some point…