Block explorer suggestions and expectations

1

Before i start toying with a new block explorer I would like to know what features you guys think the explorer should support - knowing such things in advance makes it easier to design the db schema etc.

My current idea of the information a block explorer should provide:

  • a list of recent blocks with ability to inspect a block (block header and body) - body includes inputs, outputs and kernels
  • chain statistics - like number of transactions in the last hour or similar
  • ability to run it locally with your own node - i think it’s important to have an option to run your own explorer, not needing to trust third party one which means it should work with a non-archive node
  • potentially in the future - visual graphs of some chain metrics

Are there any obvious points I’m missing? Which explorers do you find simple to use and which provide good information to you?

Thanks in advance for all the suggestions :slight_smile:

5 Likes
2

I like this feature, using a local or remote node.

Need to think a bit more about what else is important.

1 Like
3

I like this explorer https://blockstream.info/ . It doesn’t have many elements, keeps things simple for the user and I think this would be a good starting point.

1 Like
4

Something simple like this is nice. I am only missing graphs of transaction number per block, chain splits, these kind of things. Chain splits combined with difficulty would be even more interesting to see, but this might be a lot of work and probably not what an average user looks for.

1 Like