Learn to develop dApps with the 4 tools
Like normal ordinary applications, dApps are a type of blockchain-based applications that can be applied over a variety of use cases, including freelancing (online services), lending apartments, in escrows meant for real estate deals, car leasing deals, ICO contracts, in the creating of custom ERC20 tokens, in affiliate systems, crypto wallets, in e-commerce platforms, and in online services.
There are other areas that smart contracts can be applied including delivery of containers, long-term contracts with delayed or step-by-step payment, chained contracts, multilateral contracts and small business applications such as automatic payments, ordering services, internal and international trade. The list is endless when it comes to applying blockchain dApps within a business setting.
These four tools can help you experiment with our first dApp, easily.
Dappbuilder
Dappbuilder, which aims to be a WordPress of Blockchain, allows anyone to get different templates to build different types of dApps including voting dApps, escrow dApps, Multisignature wallets, betting dApps, ICO token generation, custom token generation, and many other types of dApps.
How it works?
The app was founded by Ibuildapp, which is a mobile app builder. How it works is after creating of and logging into your account, you can select the type of template you want to use to develop a dApp depending on the type of dApp you want to build.
Lets assuming you have already decided on the type of dApp you need. For instance, I select Escrow dApp template to build an escrow dApp that utilizes Ethereum smart contract protocol. My type of dApp is a simple Escrow dApp that allows a seller and buyer to transact based on the terms of sale stipulated by seller or agreed upon by both the buyer and seller. The smart contact dApp also includes an escrow agent to see the evidence of shipment and initiate transfer of funds. The seller must provide the evidence to agent to get payment. The agent can get a small fee of the transaction for his or her arbitration.
The process of creating a dApp is simple thanks to the available template, yes but these are very very simple over-simplifed examples of what a smart contract can be: its way more too complex than this due to security requirements.
To do a sample of a simple app with dappbuilder.com, just fill in the dApp name, price in Ethereum -- which is the price in ETH the seller needs to receive as payment for his products; then fill in the sellers, buyers, and arbitrator's Ethereum addresses; then the fee in ETH that is to be paid to the arbitrator.
You can also set limit for the payment agreement on the dApp. And Urrah!
To complete the process, you will need to install Metamask, unlock your account, and choose Main Ethereum Network or Rinkeby Test Network as an alternative.
This near last process is simple because Metamask, for instance, is web-based extension for both Mozilla and Chrome and can be downloaded and installed immediately within seconds on the browser. You then proceed to create an wallet account with Ethereum network or login into one (by using your recovery seed) if you already have it.
For your info, Metamask now also works for Android and iOS.
So in short, Metamask just allows to create a wallet and access the Ethereum network and you can also choose testnet if your dapp is to go to testing instead of live network. So if you want to test your dApp use the testnet platforms.
You then can create and publish the dApp.
For people who are looking for other features in a dApp development tool, Dappbuilder allows people to not only use the templates but to also create custom dApps using code. The platform provides a manual to help you ensure that the contract adheres has some required specific logic and special method to work on dApp builder platform.
dApp Builder also features a community reviewed smart contract marketplace where users do publish their dApps and find dApps they can customize. It also provides a web interface for the user's dApp and users can publish their dApps on Google Play.
Embark
Embark provides options and templates for different use-cases. It allows one to build and deploy decentralized applications and integrates with Ethereum blockchains, decentralized storages like IPFS and Swarm, and decentralized communication platforms like Whisper.
It makes building of dApps creation as easy as possible by providing all the necessary tools for the process. Some of these features include automatic smart contract deployment that allows development as well as deploying of smart contracts, client development which allows building on an app with framework of choice within Embark, testing feature that allows users to test their dApps using Web3 JavaScript.
Embark also allows the distribution of dApps through IPFS, provides peer-to-peer messaging to allow receiving of messages from protocols like Whisper; and also Cockpit, a companion application that makes developing and debugging of decentralized applications a breeze.
In order to start building dapplications using Embark, you need to first install Node, Ethereum Client (optional), IPFS (optional). Ethereum Client allows spinning up an Ethereum node: Embark has Ganache CLI but geth is required in order to run a real node. You install Embark through a package manager of your choices such as the Node Version Manager, which allows installing of different versions of Node in isolated environments without need to change permissions when installing packages.
Once these have been installed, run the demo account using the demo command which will scaffold and set up a complete application for the user to play with.
From the dashboard, you can select Contracts, Environment, Status, Available Services, or Logs and Console smart contract templates or demo contracts. Then open up a terminal of choice and run the demo commands ($ embark demo and $ cd embark_demo) to create a demo application. The run command is then used to run the application. Embark not only compiles and deploys the smart contract that comes with the demo app to a custom blockchain in the user's local machine, but also compiles the web app that is part of the demo and deployed to a local web server. You can also open the web page if it does not open the browser automatically.
The help! command provides the list of commands that the user can run inside the dashboard.
Flow
Flow allows developers to easily build games, apps, and the digital assets smart contracts. Using it, developers get to develop crypto-and crypto-enabled businesses on which consumers can control their own data and build economies through which their services and businesses are accessible from anywhere in the world. Users can build Ethereum-based applications and also achieve consumer-friendly on-boarding.
To enhance on-boarding, Flow, for instance, allows fiat-to cryptocurrency conversion.
Smart contracts developed using this platform are also upgradeable. They can first be deployed to the mainnet in a beta state and incrementally updated by the original authors. Users can get alerts on unfinished nature of this code and can choose to wait until the code is finalized before trusting it.
The smart contract can be made immutable once ensured and confirmed safe.
For developers, Flow offers templates that allows one to go through the fundamentals of developing on-chain currencies, collectibles, marketplaces, and more. You can go through building of simple applications such as marketplaces, non-fungible tokens and fungible tokens.
Ideally, the PlayGround is a sort of tutorial where you can go through and practice building of dapps. For instance, you can learn to build marketplace dapps or smart contracts that incorporate fungible and non-fungible tokens. For instance, you can learn to build marketplace dapps or smart contracts that incorporate fungible and non-fungible tokens. You get access to basic code or templates for these dApps and directions on how you can interact with the codes.
You can get access to a basic NFT contract structure, learn how to edit it, and learn how to deploy it on the mainnet. For instance, for building a non-fungible token (NFTs), the starter code provided is here.
Teelkee
Teelkee is a dApp builder for Steem platform. It also features a marketplace where users can access DApps plugins and distribution with premium features.
Teelkee allows anyone to tokenize their assets and launch the token via dApp on Steem blockhain. The user does not even need to be a programmer or to have deep knowledge of how blockchain functions. Instead, a user gets connected to people who have the knowledge and allow you to create your tokens. It aims to democratize tokenization on the blockhain in the same way WordPress enables people to create their own websites without coding as would be needed through coding.
It supports building of applications on mobile and desktop. by providing the functionality needed to create and tokenize dApps and plugins and themes. The platform is powered by Smart Media Tokens and users can deploy their dApps on Steem without a need to support their own publicly-tradable ERC-20 token.
Building can be achieved by just drag and dropping modules and selecting a few parameters in the UI interface. This makes it easy to create and edit social DApps with no coding skills. In addition to providing mobile development and hosting platform for Steem developers, there is a marketplace of dApps, plugins and themes. The platform also connects businesses with the blockchain technology even if it is not a trivial task to integrate applications and blockchain for businesses. It is in early testing phase and admission is via application.
