Since the release of Vessel 0.2.0, I've been busy talking to many of you and working hard to resolve the bugs you've encountered. The version now has jumped 3 revisions and is 0.2.3, with a few improvements and a number of bug fixes for various operating systems.

Before going too much further:

What is Vessel?

Vessel is a desktop wallet for the Steem blockchain, which can be downloaded and run on your computer. Vessel is free to use and open source, and is designed to be a way to help secure your account on the Steem blockchain. While using Vessel, your keys/password never leave the app, transactions are signed locally, and then broadcast to the network much like any other downloadable cryptocurrency wallet.

Here's a few of the other most recent updates, as well as the original announcement:

• 2017/12/09 - 0.2.0 Release
• 2017/11/29 - 0.0.9 Release
• 2017/05/20 - Initial Release

Download Vessel

Vessel is still beta software and it's recommended that you treat it as such. Before committing irreversible actions on your account (such as large outgoing transfers), please test with smaller amounts to ensure it's working properly on your computer.

Download available on github for macOS (.dmg file), Windows (.exe file) and Linux (.snap and .deb files).

• Releases: https://github.com/aaroncox/vessel/releases
• chainBB Forums: https://chainbb.com/f/vessel
• Bug Reports: https://github.com/aaroncox/vessel/issues
• Source Code: https://github.com/aaroncox/vessel

What's new in 0.2.1 through 0.2.3

• The delegation operation prompt will now display a notice if you have an existing delegation you are going to overwrite.
• Distribution of Vessel through Snapcraft (https://snapcraft.io/vessel/).
• Vessel will now prompt for operations if Vessel is not already open.
• Bug fixes to allow Linux/Windows users to be prompted via links.
• Removed the requirement of the appdata portion of the URL (after the #)

Linux Users can now install via the Snap Store (or compatible application)

If you are using a Linux distribution that supports the Snap Store, it's incredibly easy to install Vessel now. Just search for vessel and it will appear and allow installation.

If you're prefer to go about it from the command line, that's possible as well, simply by typing:

snap install vessel

Vessel will now be installed and available through your application launcher.

Delegation Operation Overwriting

By the design of Steem's delegation system, you can only have a single delegation between your account and another. Everytime you change this, it's overwriting the value, as opposed to creating a new delegation. This is/was confusing depending on how the end user UI presents it before triggering a Vessel operation.

This new blue information window has been added to inform the user that an existing delegation is present, and informing them that they're altering the existing delegation rather than adding to it.

More 0.2.x releases

As we finish out this year and move into 2018 - you can expect a lot more of these minor releases as I continue to tweak what's possible with this custom protocol. This post itself isn't glamorous or exciting, but these bug fixes are critical for adoption.

Please continue to reach out as you're integrating Vessel into your projects. Let me know what problems you're running into, what could be better, and what it will take to help make your project successful.