12.2k sats \ 2 replies \ @MoritzK 27 Jan 2023 \ on: Easiest way to talk to a lightning node from a JavaScript frontend bitcoin
Alby + WebLN provides easy access to lightning nodes from a JavaScript frontend.
  1. As a developer, you don´t need to implement different interfaces for each lightning node implementation. Developers can easily access any node API without having to deal with the complexities of connecting to the node or the underlying protocol. Loading the lightning channels from LND is just a function call: webln.request('listchannels') (example for LND) No macaroons, no gRPC or other additional software package needed to build a web app. Users can bring their own node connection to web applications without having to pass their node credentials, without installing additional node software or having to jump loops to access nodes behind Tor. You can find more details in this blog post
  2. As a developer you can stay completely in JavaScript but you would need to adjust the naming of the call to each implementation API (e.g. webln.request('listchannels') for LND or webln.request('listpeers') for CLN if you want to load lightning channels of a specific node). With increasing demand that will become more consistent, I guess.
  3. Examples: Node management dashboard for LND and Liquidity Ad marketplace
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120 sats \ 1 reply \ @bitcoinplebdev OP 27 Jan 2023
Congrats my friend!
I do have to agree after working with Alby / WebLN this past week it has without a doubt been the easiest way to start building a simple lightning app while still exposing the full API for LND/CLN. I've also been using Polar with NGROK to do development in regtest and it's been super easy.
Love what you all are doing, thanks for the thoughtful response!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @MoritzK 28 Jan 2023
Yeay, glad you like it. Thanks so much for the bounty and all the work you do with plebdevs. So important.
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