cardano-cli-gui

Simple GUI that covers some basic functionality of the Cardano CLI command line tool. The GUI was created by IOGs education team for learning purposes and was tested with Cardano node 8.7.3.

⚠️ WARNING
The GUI was created for educational purposes and is not regularly updated with changes in the Cardano CLI.
Using the GUI with a different version of a Cardano node may break some functionality of the GUI.
If you are using the GUI for submitting transactions on the main net you are doing so at your own risk.

To run the GUI you can use the executable files in the executables/ folder. Download the executable for your OS.

📝	The GUI can also run in debug mode where it prints the cardano-cli commands to the terminal window instead of executing them. Debug mode can be set in the menu bar.

If you want to use the GUI in debug mode you should run the executable from a terminal window. In non-debug mode the GUI writer possible errors to the error.log file.

You can also run the GUI from source. In that case you need to have python 3 and the PyQt 5 library installed. Once installed download this repository, open a terminal in it and run:

python cardano-cli-gui.py

☝️	Most of the GUIs functionality requires a Cardano node to be running on the same OS you are running the GUI. The node has to be synced to a test or main network.

To run a cardano node download it from the Cardano node releases page and install it. The installer files are located under the Assets section that needs to be expanded. Add all executable files including the cardano-node and cardano-cli to you system path, e.g. copy them to /usr/local/bin/ if you are using a Linux OS.

Then download the configurations files from the Environments configuration files page. You can chose configuartion files depending on the network you want to run your Cardano node in.

From the folder that contains the configuration files you have downloaded run:

cardano-node run \
 --topology topology.json \
 --database-path db \
 --socket-path node.socket \
 --host-addr 0.0.0.0 \
 --port 3001 \
 --config config.json

The node.socket file will be created in the folder from where you ran the above command. Stop the node and add to your system path the following environment variable

CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH="<path>/<to>/node.socket"

If you are using a Linux OS you can do this by adding to the the follwoing line at end of your .bashrc file that is located in your HOME folder:

export CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH="$HOME/<path>/<to>/node.socket"

After that source the .bashrc file:

source ~/.bash.rc

Once you have added this envrionment variable start the cardano node again. You can check how much the node is synced if you go to the Query tab of the GUI. There select mainnet or testnet and press the Query info button. If you then scroll down in the text box you will see the field syncProgress.

You can also check the sync progress for the preview or preprod testnet with the following command:

cardano-cli query tip --testnet-magic <testnet_number> 

For the testnet number use 1 for preprod and 2 for preview.

GUI layout

The GUI functionality is seperated in 7 tabs and covers following things:

1. Start tab: set a valid folder path to unlock other tabs. The folder path will be used to load and save files, e.g. key and address files. The tab also displays if the Debug mode is set to ON or OFF.

2. Address tab: load or generate verification and signing keys, payment addresses and payment public key hashes.

3. Transactions tab: check funds for a payment address and send funds to a receiving address.

4. Smart contracts - send tab: build a script payment address for a script file and send funds to the generated script address. You can attach a datum to the transaction.

5. Smart contracts - receive tab: create a spending transactions that spends a script address UTXO. You can attach a datum and a redeemer to the transaction and set a validity interval.

6. Query tab: query an address for funds, query network information and display the transaction hash for a signed transaction file.

7. Developer tab: set the testnet number and update the era parameter.