ssbc grant proposal for June: mutable messages

The June grants thread is here

Background For the past month I've been working on a mutable (aka editable) messages prototype within a new built-from-scratch ssb client called mvd http://github.com/evbogue/mvd.

The prototype totally works, and you can try it right now: http://mutable.evbogue.com/

Check it out! Mutable messages update in real-time! Open http://mutable.evbogue.com/ in two browser windows. Next, post and edit a message. The message will show the edit in your other browser window!

Why? Mutable messages have been the most requested feature on ssb of all time. Everyone wants to be able to fix their spelling mistakes and retract messages. Mutable messages doesn't mean you can delete messages, they will always exist on your append-only log. However, it does mean you can change your mind if you want to fix a mistake or retract an opinion.

How? A new message type called edit. edit messages are queried and then used to replace existing messages in the DOM when new edit messages are discovered.

Right now mutable messages only work in mvd. If awarded this grant, I will use the granted resources to:

• Finalize the message schema for mutable messages
• Implement diff messages, so you can see how messages change over time
• Work towards implementing mutable messages in your favorite ssb clients
• Optimize mutable messages rendering to be as efficient as possible

If these goals are achievable before the end of the month, I will use the rest of the grant money to work towards creating an ssb-wiki application that uses multi-user mutable messages to create shared documents.

Who? I'm Everett Bogue. Right now I live in Rosemont, Illinois. I work at Levi Strauss in Rosemont. I've been a contributor to the ssb community since the original scuttlebutt gossip protocol, and a member of the ssbc since July 2016. I maintain %decent, %minbase, and %mvd

Last A special thanks to @suzi, who encouraged me to submit another grant application, despite my having hesitation about the process.

how hard would it be for other apps, like TickTack, to make use of this? - @moid

Ticktack uses Patchcore. I think it'd be possible to modify the message rendering in Patchcore to enable mutable message edits and rendering in Patchwork, Patchbay, and Ticktack simultaneously.

Awesome, I'm so excited for this ! Great work @ev

I'd love to have a call about schemas some time and work on that together, or at least be part of the conversation. I imagine a couple of other client devs might be keen too.

That sounds great and I think it is easy to implement in my client, which I will totaly do when you publish a message schema.

@mix Thanks! I'm definitely up for a call to talk about finalizing the mutable message schema.

I think it's important to get the schema right from the beginning, so that we aren't dealing with too many conflicts between client implementations.

Here's the conversation we're having on Github: Standard schema for mutable messages