With the release of Planet 0.11 in December 2022, you can now show your support for content creators by tipping with Ethereum. Here's how to use this new feature:

Connect Wallet

Under the main Planet menu, you'll find a new option called Connect Wallet.

To use this feature, simply click on the menu item and a QR code will appear. You can then scan the code using a wallet app that supports WalletConnect, such as MetaMask or Rainbow. This will allow you to connect your wallet to the app and access the tipping feature.

While browsing ENS dWebsites, you'll see a new tip button in the toolbar. Simply click on the button and choose the amount you'd like to tip. You can select from a range of pre-set amounts to show your support for the content you're enjoying.

When you click the Send button, a transaction will appear in your wallet app on your phone. If everything looks correct, simply confirm the transaction on your phone and it will be sent to the Ethereum network. The content creator will then receive the full amount you tipped, without any deductions. This is a simple transfer of funds between two Ethereum addresses. It's that easy!

Once the transaction is confirmed and sent, a browser window will open and display the details of the transaction on the Etherscan website. This will allow you to see the status of the transaction and track its progress on the Ethereum network.

Wallet Apps Support

During the development of this feature, we primarily tested with MetaMask and Rainbow. If your wallet app supports WalletConnect, it should be compatible with this new tipping feature. However, there are some differences in how these two apps support test networks. For example, MetaMask lets you switch between Mainnet, Goerli, and Sepolia, while Rainbow will stay on the initial network you select when you first connect.

That is the new tipping feature. And here are other improvements in this update.

Improved Published Folder

The new feature we added in the previous version, Published Folder, allows you to publish any local folder as an IPNS. If you are using static website generators, this feature can help you quickly publish the build results as an IPNS.

The new Automatically Publish option automatically monitors changes to the folder and updates the IPNS with the latest CID whenever a change is detected.

Move Article

You can now move articles between different Planets by right-clicking on an article and selecting a destination.

For example, you can use a Planet as a draft area to write and adjust your articles. When you are satisfied with the result, you can move it to the Planet where you want to publish it.

Archive/Unarchive

You can now set your own or followed Planets to Archive status. Archived Planets are not displayed in the sidebar, are not automatically published or updated, but all data is retained locally.

To restore an archived planet, you can unarchive it from the settings panel.

Show Planet IPNS and CID

A new panel for displaying IPNS and CID information for planets has been added. If you need to view a Planet's IPNS or the latest CID, you can right-click and find the new menu option Show IPNS and CID to view this information.

Those are the new features and improvements in the 0.11 update. If you experience any issues, please send feedback to the developers or seek support from the community on these channels.

• Discussions for Planet

If you have found a bug, please let us know how to reproduce it by submitting it on GitHub Issues. We will investigate and fix the issue as soon as possible.

• Issues for Planet

Welcome to Planet Feature Update 4, released on Oct 12. This release brought four new features and other fixes and improvements.

Here are all the changes between 0.9.2 and 0.10.0:

https://github.com/Planetable/Planet/compare/release-0.9.2...release-0.10.0

Publish Local Folders as IPNS

You can turn any local folder into IPNS now. This new feature can be found from the menu: Tools -> Published Folders

That makes it easier to use Planet to publish static sites built with a generator like Jekyll, Hugo, or Zola.

For example, here is a static site built with Jekyll:

• DNS: https://livid.v2ex.com/
• IPNS published with Planet 0.10+: k51qzi5uqu5dk40pdgrqh5e6soy2bide88stdbkx8h7jjwvo5cb3xbkb2b7wmq

You can follow that IPNS with Planet too.

Filebase Pinning

Filebase provides 5GB storage space and a good pinning API for free.

https://olivida.eth.limo/9BE484CD-0EA5-4742-927E-FA56F7591CC2/

With a remote pinning service, you need to wait a little bit for the pinning service to fetch the content after each content update. As the sync is done, you can close the laptop lid, and your visitors will experience a faster and more stable load speed.

Custom Code

When you need to insert HTML code into the static site built with Planet, for example, analytics and comment systems, now it is easier to do that with the new Custom Code settings.

Right-click on My Planet and select Custom Code to insert.

You can insert custom code to three common locations:

• Between <head></head>
• After <body>
• Before </body>

RSS and Podcast

Planet will now also generate an rss.xml when building the site. For example, the RSS 2.0 address of this site is:

planetable.eth.limo/rss.xml

If you have published audio content before, now Planet will also generate a podcast.xml compliant with Apple's Podcast XML standards. For example:

olivida.eth.limo/podcast.xml

Right-click My Planet to find the new Podcast settings. You can configure artwork, language, explicit content indication, and categories.

There will be more to be done for better Podcast support, and we will keep improving this feature.

Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an unnecessary CID change during site rebuild
• Add security rules to block access to the localhost IPFS API port from the internal WebView
• Prefer JSON Feed if multiple feed formats are found on a content source
• Add Insider Build channel on GitHub for more testing before stable releases
• Update the built-in IPFS version to 0.15. We also tested 0.16 and found it seems to have a new resource consumption issue. So we shipped 0.15 instead of 0.16 in Planet 0.10.
• Use SecureField for all API tokens on the UI, preventing sensitive info from being leaked in screenshots or screen sharing.
• 🌟 Added support to subscribe to IPNS published by Matters Labs

Those are the new features and improvements in the 0.10 update. If you encounter any issues, please send your feedback to the developers or seek community support from these channels.

• Discussions for Planet

If you have encountered a bug, please share with us how to reproduce it via GitHub Issues, and we will investigate and fix it as soon as possible.

• Issues for Planet

Welcome to Feature Update 3, released on September 18, 2022. We brought you two new features in this update and many fixes and improvements.

Here are all the changes between 0.8.1 and 0.9.2:

https://github.com/Planetable/Planet/compare/release-0.8.1...release-0.9.2

dWebServices.xyz

dWebServices.xyz provides hosted IPNS records. You can enter your API key and domain in the new Integration tab in Edit Planet. Whenever you update your content, the latest CID will be sent to dWebServices.xyz to be written in the hosted IPNS record. Then, in addition to the built-in IPNS record, you will get another hosted one. The hosted one may have better discoverability because it is on a well-connected server. This is especially useful for laptop users because you will not need to keep your laptop on to keep your IPNS record active.

Later we will introduce another integration with a pinning service. Then laptop users will just need to wait for a bit after each content update. As soon as a confirmation from the remote pinning service arrives, laptop users can close the lid.

Follow .bit

Now, when you Follow Planet, a new domain is supported:

.bit

.bit is also powered by smart contracts running on a blockchain. The underlying blockchain is Nervos Network.

Like ENS, .bit can have dWeb records, and you can set IPNS to your .bit domains. So it can have a website built with Planet. .bit has its own public gateway too. For example, you can access this blog via the following address:

https://planetable.bit.cc

One thing is different, .bit does not need you to pay gas when you update records. That is because a certain amount of gas fees are already included in the registration.

Improvements

• Planet app main window can now remember position and size. Previously, due to a default mechanism in SwiftUI, users get the default size when closing and opening a new window.
• Added a setting to select a preferred public gateway.

• Updated peering settings with Cloudflare. New content will be discovered by Cloudflare public gateways more smoothly.
• Added CORS config for webui.ipfs.io, so users will be able to check local IPFS settings with webui.ipfs.io
• Added support for internal links. Users can link another article or planet, and the app will select the item instead of opening it with the default browser.
• When you link another Planet, for example , if you are already following, the app will select it. Or start trying to follow it.
• Fixed an issue where the unread count is not updated.
• Fixed an issue where Mark All as Read is not working.
• Fixed a performance issue that causes a spinning wheel when checking for updates of the following Planets.
• Added a share button for articles on the top toolbar.
• Implemented a config to lower the connections opened by the IPFS daemon, thus lowering the resource consumption. We will provide a finer tuning UI for this in a future update.
• Added showing ENS icon for following Planets
• Added support to render Markdown in Planet about info. For example, now you can have links in the about field like this:

• Added a confirm dialog when unfollowing Planet
• Use TabView in Planet edit window for better organizing more features
• Added support to enter GitHub / Twitter usernames for social links on the homepage
• Fixed an issue with URL encoding when opening Plausible.io Dashboard (Thanks to the PR by @Fatpandac)
• Fixed a regression where the preview area stopped sync scroll position with editor area
• Writer window can remember the size and position per Planet
• Added support for self-hosted Plausible.io
• Added a new variable hasAvatar for template designers to use to decide whether a Planet has an avatar image
• When you set an avatar for a Planet, a 32x32 version is saved as favicon.ico
• Added support to use WorldWideWeb by The Iconfactory to open locally built website for preview

Those are the new features and improvements in the 0.9 update. If you encounter any issues, please send your feedback to the developers or seek community support from these channels.

• Discussions for Planet

If you are pretty sure you have encountered a bug, please share with us how to reproduce it via GitHub Issues, and we will investigate and fix it as soon as possible.

• Issues for Planet

In September's feature update, we added integration with dWebServices.xyz.

dWebServices is an IPNS record hosting service. When the integration is enabled in Planet, each time you update your website, the latest CID will be sent to dWebServices to be updated in the IPNS record hosted there.

To start, first, you can sign up with your Ethereum wallet. The service can detect ENS domains already in the wallet, or you can add any domain to the dashboard. Then when you edit planet, you will find a section to enter the domain and API key here:

Then, in addition to the built-in IPNS record in Planet, you will now have another IPNS record hosted with dWebServices. The hosted IPNS record usually has better discoverability because it's on a well-connected server. That is especially useful for users running Planet from their laptops since laptops are not meant to be running 24x7 as servers.

You can set that hosted IPNS record as your ENS contenthash or .bit dWeb record too.

I hope you will find the new integration useful.

dWebServices is in the latest Gitcoin Round 15, a program that funds software projects. You can donate to the dWebServices project, and the project will receive a matching amount from Gitcoin sponsors.

So now, for the optimal experience for laptop users, the only missing piece is that we would need a good pinning service that accepts CID or IPNS records. Then users running Planet from their laptops would only need to wait a bit each time they updated their websites. As soon as confirmations from remote services arrive, they can close the lids, and the content will be hosted from those services, while authoritative versions are still controlled locally.

In September's feature update, Planet added support for another blockchain-based domain name:

.bit

Follow the link above, and you can register your .bit domain name.

.bit also supports IPFS as a content source. So you can use the IPNS built with Planet.

A difference is, when setting content source for .bit domain name, you will not need to pay extra gas, that is because:

1. The cost to register a .bit domain name contains a certain amount of gas for future changes on the chain.
2. The blockchain .bit depends on, Nervos Network's design keeps cost low for computational tasks.

So, the blog you are currently visiting has a .bit domain too, and you can access it via .bit's Public dWeb Gateway:

planetable.bit.cc

When you are trying to follow other Planets, .bit is now also supported:

WorldWideWeb is an HTTP server from The Iconfactory. Craig Hockenberry made the app because it is becoming harder and harder to start a simple Web server as Apple was removing open source components like the Apache HTTPd in recent years.

The name, WorldWideWeb, is a homage to the world's first HTTP server, which was running on Tim Berners-Lee's NeXT computer. You can see that computer on WorldWideWeb's help page.

The app works: select a folder, and WorldWideWeb starts listening on port 8080 to serve the website inside the folder. Then you can visit that website by navigating to localhost:8080 in a browser.

In the recently released 0.8.2 update for Planet, we added support for WorldWideWeb. Click on one of your Planets, and you will find a new menu item Develop -> Open in WorldWideWeb. You can use WorldWideWeb to serve the locally built static site.

If you are developing your own template for Planet, now it is much easier to see the changes. After making any changes, click Develop -> Rebuild then you can see the updated site on localhost:8080.

WorldWideWeb is available on the Mac App Store for free:

WorldWideWeb for macOS

This is the second feature update for Planet, version 0.8.0, released on August 13, 2022. The code for this update comes from the following contributors.

• @stdc105
• @kailuo
• @livid

The following link is the changes between version 0.7.0 and 0.8.0.

https://github.com/Planetable/Planet/compare/release-0.7.0...release-0.8.0

Here are the new features and improvements in this release.

Plausible.io Integration

Plausible.io is an open source web traffic analytics platform. You can now enter your Plausible.io domain and API key in the info panel of Planet. And a new button will show you the traffic stats of your Planet.

For example, the following link is traffic data for planetable.eth.

https://plausible.io/planetable.eth.limo

Another example is from the official Plausible.io website:

https://plausible.io/plausible.io

Plausible.io is privacy focused. The platform does not collect personal information and does not even use cookies, so there is no need for a cookie banner to pop up on pages that use Plausible.io.

We will add support for self-hosted versions of Plausible in a future update.

Podcast and Attachment Support

You can now attach an audio file when creating content, or drag and drop the audio file into the writing window. An audio player will then appear on the page when you publish.

When you access Planets with audio in Planet App after 0.8.0, you will see a headphone button in the toolbar, and clicking it will launch a global audio player to play the audio content. The playback will not stop when you click between posts.

We will continue to optimize this global audio player in future releases.

If you drag and drop other formats such as PDF or DMG into the writing window, they will be included as attachments. Visitors can click the attachment icon in the toolbar to download them.

Improvements to the Built-in Templates

Planet currently has two built-in templates.

In this update, we have implemented these improvements to both templates.

• Support for audio content
• Link to the home page from the top area of posts
• CSS improvements for video and image content
• CSS improvements for iOS safe-area
• Dark Mode support for the homepage of Plain

Feature parity of templates is an important goal of Planet. All of the built-in templates are open source, just like the Planet App, so if you find any issues with the templates, you can send us feedback via GitHub Issues or even PR:

• https://github.com/Planetable/SiteTemplatePlain
• https://github.com/Planetable/SiteTemplate8bit

Later this month, we will document how to build your custom templates.

For demoing what the template engine is capable of, here is a blog about retro gaming with the 8-bit template:

https://gamedb.eth.limo/

Built-in go-ipfs Version Update

Planet's built-in go-ipfs has been upgraded from 0.12 to 0.14. Starting with 0.13, Protocol Labs renamed the go-ipfs project to kubo, so when we need to mention go-ipfs in the documentation, we will use the new name kubo.

During the first startup after kubo update, there will be a migration for the repo. If your local IPFS repo has a large number of files, then this migration may take some time, just let it run for a while.

We will provide more GUI management features for the local IPFS repo in a future release.

RSS Reader

Actually, the initial release of Planet came with RSS capabilities. However, we didn't announce the feature because we felt some details were not good enough.

In this 0.8.0 update, we have improved and tested many aspects of the RSS feature, so now we would like to invite you to try it out.

Here are some interesting RSS feeds.

• Low Tech Magazine: A site powered entirely by solar power, so it may be down on cloudy days.
• Deep Look channel on YouTube: Amazing 4K videos of interesting creatures!

Many sites that update their content regularly are likely to have RSS feeds. An example is YouTube Channels. You can try putting the URL of a website into Follow Planet, and if an RSS feed does exist on the website, then you can subscribe with Planet.

If you encounter problems with RSS feeds, feel free to send feedback to the following community channels.

• GitHub Discussions for Planet

Local Notifications

We have further improved Local Notifications in this update. When you receive a notification for content updates from a Planet, click on the Notification to take you to the article.

Misc Improvements

• The Markdown rendering engine has been replaced so that Planet now outputs GitHub Flavored Markdown, and that also cleared some crashes with Ink.
• Now, when viewing posts, if you try downloading anything from the page, it works. Previously it did not work because we did not implement WKDownloadDelegate in web views.
• Improved support for DNSLink. Note that if you want to follow a site via DNSLink, you need to specify the planet protocol in the Follow Planet window, e.g., enter the domain name like this: planet://zu1k.com
• The TTL for IPNS records published from Planet has been adjusted from 1 week to 1 year. However, the lifetime of IPNS records depends on many factors. So, if you want to keep your IPNS records active, we recommend running Planet at least once a week. In an upcoming blog post, we will go into more details about this complex topic, IPNS and Pinning.

Those are the main new features and improvements in the 0.8.0 update. If you encounter any issues, you can give feedback to the developers or seek community assistance from these channels.

• Discussions for Planet

If you are pretty sure you have encountered a bug, you can tell us how to reproduce it via GitHub Issues, and we'll investigate and fix it as soon as possible.

• Issues for Planet

This is the first feature update since we released the app in June 2022.

Video Support

Now you can attach a video to your post. Each post can have at most one video, then the post title and content serve as the title and description of the video. Currently, the app will not recompress the video, so please be mindful of the bitrate of the video you choose to share, as a higher bitrate would need more time to download.

This post has one video! And if you view it with an HDR-capable screen like the ones in the new 14 and 16-inch MBP, you will notice it is an HDR video.

A New Data Layer

We rewrote the components of how the app handles data. It solved some issues that occurred with the initial version, and it also made a lot of views faster. Previously, you will probably notice some slowness when switching to the Unread view. Now that slowness is gone.

From this version, the app starts to send notifications for the new content from the planets you followed.

Improved ENS Support

Now the app can load any ENS that has a working content hash. In the initial version, it only supported ENS with a feed.

If the ENS you follow has an NFT avatar, it will show in the app sidebar!

A faster gateway is used when you try to open ENS links with an external browser without ENS support, like vanilla Safari or Chrome! Here is a comparison. Which one is faster for you?

• Before: https://planetable.eth.link
• After: https://planetable.eth.limo

Planet is a native macOS app for building, publishing, and following websites and blogs on IPFS + ENS. With those decentralized Internet technologies, you have total control of your content, and your fans follow you directly.

Planet uses IPFS as the solution for distributing content. In IPFS, each piece of content has its own unique CID. So if you add a whole directory for publishing to IPFS, each unique file in the directory will have its own unique CID, and the top-level directory has its own CID too.

When publishing, you are linking the top-level CID to your IPNS so that when others try to access the IPNS, they will get that CID. In Planet's case, it is the CID of a directory that contains the website you built with Planet.

Have you ever wondered whether setting up a website with an ENS is possible? The answer is yes, and you can set your website to the Content Hash field like setting an A or CNAME for a traditional domain name.

The standard is EIP-1577, and this Content Hash field can accept a few possible values. For example, IPFS -- another decentralized content distribution technology. And vitalik.eth website is already running on IPFS.

After you created a website with Planet, right-click on the item in the sidebar, and choose "Copy IPNS," then you will get something that looks like this in pasteboard:

k51qzi5uqu5dgv8kzl1anc0m74n6t9ffdjnypdh846ct5wgpljc7rulynxa74a

Then you can put that IPNS into your ENS ContentHash like this:

Make sure ipns:// is added before that string.

Then your website is linked to your ENS. Congrats! Now you have a decentralized website running on ENS + IPFS!