Create Polkadot-Api-Cli-Gui.md

[tolgayayci]

Project Abstract

Developing user-friendly graphical interface for the Polkadot Api CLI

Grant level

• Level 1: Up to $10,000, 2 approvals
• Level 2: Up to $30,000, 3 approvals
• Level 3: Unlimited, 5 approvals (for >$100k: Web3 Foundation Council approval)

Application Checklist

• The application template has been copied and aptly renamed (project_name.md).
• I have read the application guidelines.
• Payment details have been provided (bank details via email or Polkadot (USDC & USDT) address in the application).
• I am aware that, in order to receive a grant, I (and the entity I represent) have to successfully complete a KYC/KYB check.
• The software delivered for this grant will be released under an open-source license specified in the application.
• The initial PR contains only one commit (squash and force-push if needed).
• The grant will only be announced once the first milestone has been accepted (see the announcement guidelines).
• I prefer the discussion of this application to take place in a private Element/Matrix channel. My username is: @_______:matrix.org (change the homeserver if you use a different one)

[github-actions]

CLA Assistant Lite bot All contributors have signed the CLA ✍️ ✅

[tolgayayci]

I have read and hereby sign the Contributor License Agreement.

[semuelle]

Thank you for the application, @tolgayayci. I have some initial questions:

• What does it take to implement all these modules and functions you are listing in the deliverables? Do you actually go through all these? I would assume that there is a way of generating a UI based on the function definition.
• Projects like these only succeed when they find adoption and a community. Since your previous projects don't seem to have done that, I'd be curious to know what your plan is for this one.

[tolgayayci]

Hi @semuelle, thanks for fast evaluation.

Question 1: We gave detailed information in the documentation about how to do this, but we accidentally included a broken link, sorry for that. You can review the detailed documentation of project implementation here: Documentation

To summarize, the pages will be automated according to the module and method definitions as you mentioned. Pages are also type-based, we will create an auto-generated UI as you mentioned according to these types, but detailed work needs to be done for this to work smoothly.

After you review the implementation if you had any questions, we would be happy to answer them.

Question 2: Let us explain our projects and its evolution by time with details.

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Flowana (formerly PolkaFlow)

Before we evaluate Flowana, we would like to share a few links and metrics with you.

Project URL (New): https://flowana.app
Project URL (Old, PolkaFlow): https://polkaflow.vercel.app/
Mert's Announcement: #1586 (comment)

Analytics (Last 90 Days)

Proposal Approval: Mar 8, 2023
Payment (Project Completion): May 23, 2023
Mert's Initial Commit for new version: June 18, 2023 - 55 Commits until today
Tolga's Initial Commit for new version: July 3, 2023 - 50 Commits until today
User Count: 130+

Considering the above data, after the project is completed (without asking for an extra grant), we developed platform from scratch and added new features like Mert mentioned in announcement. We have received more than 130 visitors in the last 2 months and together we have made more than 100 commits.

This is a Level 1 project. While there were 25 polkadot projects in the old version, 1905 polkadot projects are indexed in the new version and are currently displayed on the site. We think that we have explained above that we support the platform at a sufficient level, and in the light of this information, we believe that it would be not justified to consider the project as unsuccessful.

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Awesome Polka

Awesome Polka is a social platform for discovering and exploring the projects in protocols. It is a platform where users can share their projects and users can discover new projects. It was last updated in July and the improvements I mentioned in the link below were made. There are currently more than 400 projects.

I agree with the criticism that this platform could be more active. If the platform is included in the polkadot docs and the guidance of new projects is provided by w3f, I can continue to keep the platform more active. Projects need to add themselves, but since most project teams do not have contact information, details need to be added by me, which takes time. From now on, we can list new or not added projects on the platform with the help of w3f.

Project URL: https://dev.awesomepolka.org/projects
Tolga's Announcement: #1808 (comment)

Proposal Approval: Mar 8, 2023
Payment (Project Completion): May 18, 2023
Last Update July 3, 2023
Project Count: 400+

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For this project, we request that this GUI application's link will be added to the relevant pages such as api-cli and tools in Polkadot wiki etc. Cli users will want to use it when they see such an easy-to-use alternative. We also tried to use cli, but as we mentioned in the proposal, the learning curve is high if you do not have deep experience with it before.

Grant applications are required to write only development, so we did not talk much about maintenance, but we guarantee to fix the project if there is any breaking change for a year. Because if the polkadot runtime changes, the API may also change, so some modules and methods may not work.

[keeganquigley]

Thanks for your thorough answers @tolgayayci though I like the concept, I also have some concerns:

For this project, we request that this GUI application's link will be added to the relevant pages such as api-cli and tools in Polkadot wiki etc. Cli users will want to use it when they see such an easy-to-use alternative. We also tried to use cli, but as we mentioned in the proposal, the learning curve is high if you do not have deep experience with it before.

The foundation tries to stay objective when it comes to projects, so unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to add your tools to our web pages. We also can't provide guidance to teams to add themselves to the site. The grants program is here to bootstrap projects, but we always hope to see that projects can eventually develop a community organically. The grants program also shouldn't be the sole source of income for the project.

Grant applications are required to write only development, so we did not talk much about maintenance, but we guarantee to fix the project if there is any breaking change for a year. Because if the polkadot runtime changes, the API may also change, so some modules and methods may not work.

I would disagree with this statement, because, as our guidelines state, successful applicants are required to write documentation as well. And while maintenance may not in the scope of the grant itself, we still ask teams to somehow demonstrate that the project will be maintained after the completion of the grant. I would have to agree that it doesn't appear this is the case with Awesome Polka or PolkaFlow.

[tolgayayci]

Hey @keeganquigley, thanks for review.

The foundation tries to stay objective when it comes to projects, so unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to add your tools to our web pages. We also can't provide guidance to teams to add themselves to the site. The grants program is here to bootstrap projects, but we always hope to see that projects can eventually develop a community organically. The grants program also shouldn't be the sole source of income for the project.

We made such a request because it was used directly on the polkadot api-cli, but we understood it. For this, we can work on forums, discord and similar channels.

I would disagree with this statement, because, as our guidelines state, successful applicants are required to write documentation as well. And while maintenance may not in the scope of the grant itself, we still ask teams to somehow demonstrate that the project will be maintained after the completion of the grant. I would have to agree that it doesn't appear this is the case with Awesome Polka or PolkaFlow.

We think we have given a sufficient explanation on this issue above, but I still want to ask. We have done a lot of maintenance on Polkaflow, and there are some justified criticisms about Awesome Polka, which we accept. However, we would like to know more clearly the situation where you see us as not doing maintenance. What are the clear criterias that prove that a project is maintained?

If there are repos that are funded at Level 1 and that you say are being maintained, we would like to examine what they do differently from PolkaFlow, because we still think that we are maintaining them sufficiently and we are waiting for your open comments on this issue.

A suggestion: If maintenance is to be seriously examined, this should be stated in the milestone, so that both parties can talk on a certain level with clear goals. For example, flow or many protocols make maintenance payments after the maintenance conditions are met, and if a part of the proposal is allocated as maintenance, by this way uncertain situation can be avoided.

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @tolgayayci for your reply. While I agree that the PolkaFlow site seems to be more active, the dashboard doesn't seem to be open-source, as there is nothing in the repo. This makes it a lot harder for us to judge the value of the project, and also personally makes me worry that you might not keep this cli tool published either.

Generally we look at things like commit activity, number of contributors, community forks, stars, and insights such as code frequency. We also look at external factors, such as your team's activity in forum discussions, and community engagement with the product.

To answer your question, a great example of a level 1 grant that has continued to be maintained afterwards might be ParaSpell. By taking a look at their code frequency I can see the activity from when the grant started. They had a couple of level 1 grants, and then subsequently went for Treasury funding once the community started using the project.

We understand that not every project will necessarily be successful, but we try to do our due diligence in ensuring that it can become successful. This is why maintenance is important. At this point, I'm not yet convinced about this project and therefore am not going to approve it. But I appreciate the time and effort you've put into this application.

[justmert]

Hi @keeganquigley, thank you for your feedback.

The dashboard doesn't seem to be open-source, as there is nothing in the repo.

Actually, all of our projects are open source. The link you have provided is not related to the PolkaFlow. Polkaflow is renamed to Flowana (and rewritten) can be accessed from here: https://flowana.app/polkadot/projects with new changes below,

• More widgets to discover
• New health score feature that shows the health of all projects
• Now the community can see the analytics of the Polkadot forum
• New developer overview page
• Compare projects, and developers and see best of them in Leaderboard page
• Improved searh functionality
• New UI/UX improvements

Flowana frontend is fully open-source: https://github.com/tolgayayci/flowana-frontend/tree/dev
Flowana backend is full open-source: https://github.com/justmert/flowana-backend

This makes it a lot harder for us to judge the value of the project, and also personally makes me worry that you might not keep this cli tool published either.

We really don't understand this statement since we publish all of our projects as open-source.

Could you please explain your hesitation about how we are not maintaining PolkaFlow (now Flowana) with over 100 commits and 180+ users with massive new features compared to first implementation?

We have delivered 20+ projects as open-source for 12+ different protocols. Please re-consider your review since it was a misunderstanding. Thank you @keeganquigley.

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @justmert for your response. I did go to https://flowana.app/polkadot/projects and when you scroll down and click on "GitHub" that's the repo it links to. This is why I thought it was the official repo. Apologies for the mistake. In that case though, I would ask why the website is hosted in your personal repos instead of the official one for YK Labs.

I checked out both the repos above but the back-end repo has no .readme file and the front-end repo .readme is still the Next.js template text. I appreciate that they are active but I'm still not seeing much evidence of user adoption or dev engagement here. Without more information, I'm afraid this doesn't really change my stance.

[tolgayayci]

Hi @keeganquigley,

The reason we keep it in our individual repos is to make it cost effective. When you try to deploy a project from the organization repo, Vercel requires a subscription, so we keep it individual. I don't think this changes much.

Since this is not a developer tool like you gave in the other example, we may not have given importance to the readme, but if this is the problem, writing two readmes will not take much time. As we mentioned in my first example, we have a lot of commits and I hope we were able to convince you about this. You asked for proof, but we also shared Google analytics about the number of users.

We are not people who do not stand behind their projects, and if you think there is a lack of maintenance, we will make up for it. Instead of turning it into a sterile discussion, let's do it like this: If you are not convinced about maintenance, we would like to show you live by making a short Google Meet call with you.

After this stage, we will be happy to remove the project from the discussion of whether you have maintained it or not and get a technical evaluation.

Thanks for your time

[tolgayayci]

Happy new years to everyone! @semuelle @keeganquigley

As we mentioned above, it would be great if we could have a meeting to clear up the questions. Do we have such an opportunity?

[semuelle]

@tolgayayci, sorry for the long wait. Based on the price and scope of this proposal as well as previous deliveries, I am not going to support this application. I am also skeptical about the rest of the committee being convinced, but in any case I will bring your application to their attention on Wednesday. If there are follow-up questions then, we can discuss them here or schedule a call.

[keeganquigley]

@tolgayayci thanks for all your hard work and efforts regarding the application. Unfortunately, it wasn't able to garner enough approvals from the committee. Therefore I'm going to go ahead and close it, but we thank you for your interest in the W3F grants program, and wish you the best of luck in finding funding.