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Changelog
v0.20.0
go-ipfs support
With this release, we finally bring back the support for using OrbitDB with go-ipfs (through js-ipfs-api). You can now use OrbitDB again with a running IPFS daemon and without starting an in-process js-ipfs node.
To make OrbitDB work again with go-ipfs, we refactored some parts of the messaging and created two new modules to do that: ipfs-pubsub-peer-monitor and ipfs-pubsub-1on1. They're both modules on top of IPFS Pubsub and are used to handle the automatic message exchange upon peers connecting.
As this is the first release with support for go-ipfs in a long time, please report any problems you may experience!
Improved test suite and documentation
We've improved the documents by adding details, fixing errors and clarifying them.
We also improved the tests a lot since the previous release. We now run the tests with js-ipfs-api (go-ipfs) in addition to running them with js-ipfs (Node.js). We've also cleaned up and refactored the boilerplate code for tests, improved the speed of the test run and generally polished the test suite for better readability and maintainability.
Custom stores and keys
OrbitDB can now use a custom store through addDatabaseType(), see more here.
We added support for pssing a custom keystore to the store and use your own keys to sign and verify the database updates.
Important fixes
The previous release brought in LevelDB as the storage backend for Node.js and browser and there were some rough edges. We've fixed a bunch a problems related to using LevelDB and it should all work now.
Last, we further improved the replication code and its performance at places.
v0.19.0
This release bring a bunch of fixes and updates improving performance, stability and browser compatibility. As always, we highly encourage to update to the latest version and report any problems in https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-db/issues.
A big thank you to all the contributors who helped and contributed to this release! <3
Replication
The previous release included a refactored version of the replication code and we've improved it even further in this release in terms of performance as well as stability. We're now seeing huge improvement in replication speed, especially when replicating a database from scratch.
To observe these improvements, run the browser examples with two (different) browser tabs and replicate a database with > 100 or so entries from tab to another.
Browser compatibility
We had some problems with browsers due to the way we used native modules. This is now fixed and OrbitDB should work in the browsers just the same as in Node.js.
LevelDB
We've switched from using filesystem-based local cache to using LevelDB as the local storage. Leveldown is used when run in Node.js and level-js is used for browsers.
General Updates
We put some work into the CRDTs library we're using and have updated OrbitDB to use the latest version. We've added more tests and improved the test suite code and tests now run faster than they did previously.
Performance
With all the updates and fixes, we're now seeing much better performance for replicating databases between peers as well as for write throughput. See benchmarks if you're interested to try it out yourself.
v0.18.0
This release is a major one as we've added new features, fixed many of the old problems, improved the performance and code base and overhauled the documentation. OrbitDB is now more robust, easier to use, faster and comes with much awaited write-permissions feature.
This release contains API breaking changes with no backward compatibility! Read further and see the API documentation, examples and Getting Started Guide to learn more about the changes. Note that we don't use semver for the npm module, so be sure to lock your orbit-db dependency to the previous release if you don't want to upgrade.
Write-permissions
OrbitDB now has write-permissioned databases! \o/ This gives us verifiable, distributed databases and data structures enabling tons of new use cases and possibilities. User-owned data collections, feeds and lists, State and Payment Channels, and many more!
Permissions are defined by public keys and databases in OrbitDB support one or multiple write keys per database. Each database update is signed with a write-access key and the signature is verified by the clients against access control information. Next step is to extend the access control functionality to include read permissions. Read more about Access Control and Keys.
Addresses
OrbitDB databases, their name and ID, are now addressed through a naming scheme:
/orbitdb/Qmd8TmZrWASypEp4Er9tgWP4kCNQnW4ncSnvjvyHQ3EVSU/my/database/hello
Read more about Addresses.
Replication
The previous versions of OrbitDB had a flaky replication implementation which has been completely re-written for this release. We've made performance improvements and more importantly, peers now start syncing the database automatically and reliably.
Performance
Several performance improvements made throughout OrbitDB's code base together with latest IPFS we're seeing much better throughput numbers in benchmarks. There are still many improvements to be made!
Documentation and Examples
We've written a brand new Getting Started Guide to work as a tutorial and a place to understand OrbitDB's features and usage. The API documentation was also updated to reflect latest features and changes.
All examples were updated along with an updated UI for the browser demo. Another small browser demo was added and there's a TodoMVC with Orbitdb example in the works.
Code Base Improvements
Due to legacy reasons, OrbitDB previously used a wrapper module for IPFS called ipfs-daemon. We have removed and deprecated ipfs-daemon and are now using js-ipfs directly!
We've switched to using async/await in the code base throughout the modules. This means the minimum required version of Node.js is now 8.0.0. To use with older versions of Node.js, we provide an ES5-compatible build. We've also added support for logging, which can be turned on with LOG=[debug|warn|error] environment variable.
v0.12.0
- IPFS pubsub