OrbitLens
First, about the API. The endpoints you are using (specifically ledger/ledger-stats, asset-stats/overall, asset/, asset/{asset-id}) .
We have mentioned several times in our papers and proposal that we use stellar.expert API for the tokens section. You can see it there. I don’t understand your reaction.
Showing operations without a parent transaction context does not provide complete information to users. For instance, people often want to see a transaction memo and have a direct reference to the enclosing ledger. Also, the concept of Stellar transaction-operation relations is quite hard to understand for regular users and developers with a background in other blockchains. That's the reason why we don't show the operation properties separately from the transaction. Initially, we also built it as a separate page, but decided to remove it in favor of transaction-based extended interface.
We believe showing operation details helps users understand the operations better. You can’t display all the details of an operation in the Operation Info. We also show to which operation the details belong. We think the easiest thing to do is to ask the users whether they prefer seeing operation details.
This is also positioned as a super cool and unique feature. But we have similar hints on StellarExpert for like three years now. And Etherscan added them a long time ago. So what is the novelty?
I was referring to the operation detail hints, which was first developed by the Lumenscan team.
Speaking of, I spotted a striking resemblance between your interface and Etherscan.
A transaction has a universal definition. We can’t just change the definition as we please.
You might want to check the hints, as some of them contain texts clearly not related to Stellar. There is no such thing as "mining" on Stellar.
I don’t believe we ever use the word “mining” in our project. Please point to an instance where it’s used, and we’ll fix it immediately.
That's simply not true – all transactions and operations can be found directly on the ledger info page
I meant listing them separately by transaction and ledger in separate pages.
I'm not going to comment on the design, as this topic is highly subjective. I really like the color palette of StellarScan dark theme. But all these numerous Etherscan.io clones (https://tronscan.org/ and https://tezos.id/ and many others) blindly copy the basic Bootsrap-based theme and layouts without paying any attention to the way the data is presented in some particular context. Early versions of StellarExpert were also built on Bootstrap, much resembling your current design except the color palette. But it evolved as I gathered requirements, and this simplistic design is a result of multiple changes inspired by community feedback.
I really don’t understand your point. You can talk to any UI/UX designer in the world and they’ll tell you that a standard component, such as a login form, is made up of a few basic elements. You can’t change those elements or put the input forms in different locations on the page, and call it innovation. Our approach is what millions of people like to use around the world. It’s not a clone. You’re accusing us because you don’t have enough design knowledge.
As @dzham pointed, there are no specifics about what you plan to implement in the future. If you want to create just one more thin wrapper on top of Horizon APIs – well, you are on the right way, you have about 50% ready. But if you want to build a system that provides extended ledger data and analytics as StellarExpert does it, you have a long road ahead. And you should really start with digging into Stellar internals to figure out which data you can extract, how to aggregate it, and what features you can add to your roadmap. Judging from the lonely chart on LumenScan that shows a generic demo data instead of real statistics, you haven't made progress there yet. I'd say that if you have the right people in the team and a cluster of servers, in a year you'll be able to finish your own ledger processing framework, API, and aggregated data.
Regarding @dzham’s comment, the most important characteristic of LumenScan is to create small creative improvements that amount to larger enhancements in the user experience. We can’t explain every single detail. The users will understand the improvements themselves. For example, the payments of an account,which provide a better understanding compared to a path payment.
Regarding your comment, we completely agree. We have decided to act as a node in the network and use the data to display more data to the users. We’ve only been working on Lumenscan for two months. This is only an MVP, and we’ve received great feedback. As you said, you’ve been working on your explorer for several years, and I think it’s not fair to compare the two projects. We have great plans for the future.
As a closing note, I have strangely mixed feelings regarding your project. On the one hand, you are trying to build a direct competitor service to StellarExpert while using our APIs without permission and trying to illustrate your "advantages" by demonstrating irrelevant cases directed on StellarExpert and boasting features that have been implemented in other explorers years ago.
I’d like to emphasize that we’ve mentioned the use of your Token API several times. I apologize for using the API without authorization. We thought that it was a free API like Horizon. Furthermore, we’ve talked about our own user interface. I think the users will understand the differences, and there is no need to discuss this matter anymore.
On the other hand, you clearly invested some effort into this. Community benefits from healthy competition, and I will be happy to see new players in this field. For example, we added a dark theme to StellarExpert last week following the feedback provided for your project. We are heavily invested in the in-depth ledger analysis, so it's easy to forget about such simple things that make the life of our users more comfortable
Thanks for understanding. I really hope that you’re happy about us entering the competition, but your reactions don’t reflect that.
For example, we added a dark theme to StellarExpert last week following the feedback provided for your project
We’re glad that Lumenscan was able to inspire you. Unlike you, we don’t label your actions as cloning our work. Etherscan, Lumenscan, and many other applications in the world have the dark mode theme. That’s why we don’t believe your dark mode is a copy feature. It’s a global standard.
P.S. Please remove all usages of our private APIs asap.
Sure. Please give us some time until we’re able to run our own node on Stellar and customize our database structure.
Finally
We’re glad that Lumenscan usage is growing every day, and we’re motivated to work harder. Over the past two months, we’ve done our best to create better experiences for Stellar users. We do not want to sabotage our competitors. Our goal is to grow together as a community.
Best,
-Lumenscan Team
