dfinity / dfinity/candid

As a guy who fills in `blob` fields, I want the GUI to offer a button so that I can specify a Candid value there and it gets automatically encoded

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enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
301
Forks
85
Avg merge
1h 4m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I'm always frustrated when I have to use a different tool to candid-encode complex values (e.g. into a vec { ... }), and paste them into a blob form byte-by-byte.

Describe the solution you'd like
Instead I'd like to see a GUI drop-down button so that

  • by default presents the current vec nat8 interface
  • I can textually enter a Candid value and it would get encoded to a blob.
  • I can specify a Candid type and I'd get a form for that type (on the side)
  • I can specify the blob as hex-encoded text
  • include the blob directly from a file.

Dually blob outputs could have a decode button

  • with (similar) dual options

Describe alternatives you've considered
Candid encoding a blob manually is hard and error-prone.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by identifying the GUI entry points for blob inputs and outputs, then review how the current vec nat8 interface is presented. Compare the requested text, typed-value, hex, file, and decode options and define which subset is in scope. Done means the selected blob workflows are available in the GUI and complex Candid values round-trip correctly.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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