Introduction to the Radix Wallet Developer Preview | The Radix Blog | Radix DLT
December 20, 2022
Along with the Babylon Betanet test network release, an early Betanet-only preview version of the Radix Wallet is now available. This wallet is offered specifically to support developers who are building on betanet, preparing for the big Babylon mainnet upgrade.
The Radix Wallet preview mobile app includes the core pieces of functionality needed to let developers start building and testing full Web3 and DeFi dApps that work smoothly with the Radix Wallet.
If you’re a Radix developer, or thinking about digging in, let’s talk about how the Radix Wallet relates to dApps you create and how you can start using the Radix Wallet developer preview now.
The Radix Wallet and dApps
The Radix Wallet is a crucial enabler of great user experience for Web3 and DeFi dApps on Radix.
First, the Radix Wallet is designed as a trusted point of personal control for the user. It is a mobile app where users can easily and confidently view and manage all of their accounts and assets “on ledger” on the Radix Network, as well as their Personas, personal data, and various preferences held “off ledger” locally in the app. It makes it easy for users to configure and use the multi-factor account features of the Radix Network that give users great security while not having to deal with seed phrases or passwords.
Even more importantly, the Radix Wallet is designed to let users connect to a limitless variety of dApps that developers (like you!) will create. With it, users can instantly sign in and make the contents of their wallet selectively available to your dApp, however they wish. It is designed to “get out of the way” and let you create whatever user experience you imagine, while relying on the wallet to represent the user and what they own.
So for you to build a user-facing dApp for the Radix network, you should build your dApp’s website frontend to interact with the Radix Wallet for things like logging users in using Personas, requesting account information, requesting pieces of personal data, and of course proposing transaction for the user to review and submit to the Radix Network.
The developer preview of the Radix Wallet mobile app gives you the essential features and interfaces for you to start testing these interactions with your dApp frontends, using a variety of provided tools and libraries.
What Works and What’s Coming
The first developer preview version of the Radix Wallet for betanet includes these essential features:
- Create accounts on the Radix Betanet network
- See tokens and NFTs held in accounts
- Handle one-time requests from dApps for account addresses
- Handle receiving transactions from dApps, and signing/submitting them
- Automatic addition of a fee-locking instruction to transaction manifests from dApps
- Link the wallet to a Radix Wallet Connector browser extension, for interacting with desktop dApps (via Radix Connect)
The user experience for even these functions is far from complete. For example, initially transaction manifests are shown as raw text in the wallet, rather than using the intended nice preview UI with the ability to set guarantees and more. Errors are passed through unfiltered. You may experience crashes. But what is present should be sufficient to confidently get started building.
It is expected that some developer-oriented features are coming to the preview wallet during the betanet and RCnet period. Some that are particularly high on the list for developers are:
- Handling requests for Persona logins, and ongoing permission to account and personal data
- Better transaction previews
- Better asset information display
Not all features shown during our Web3 UX vision demo at RadFi will make the v1.0 release of the Radix Wallet at the Babylon Mainnet upgrade in Q2 2023 — but many of the most essential certainly will. And we’re certain v1.0 will provide a compelling first user experience for the public when using it to connect to your dApps.
How to Get Started
If you’re ready to start building dApps on Radix, a great place to start is our developer’s hub website. Or you may want to head straight to our technical documentation where you’ll find guides on What is a dApp on Radix?, Building Your First Scrypto Component, and more.
To get access to the Radix Wallet preview, sign up here with your email address to receive an invitation link.
(If you’re waiting for an Android release, go ahead and sign up, and we’ll let you know as soon as available.)
Then, check out instructions for Wallet installation and usage.
Join the Discord #Scrypto channel to ask questions, get help and share your experience.
Originally published at https://www.radixdlt.com.
