Spectrum guide

This release contains Spectrum, a plugin for running Specter via an Electrum server instead of a Bitcoin Core node. The plugin is currently in alpha 🧪 and in order to use it, you need to allow alpha plugins. Here is how to activate them (if you use one of the apps):

• Download and start as usual
• Open Specter ➡️ Preferences
• Open Advanced
• Insert --devstatus-threshold alpha in Specterd CLI args
• It's also recommended to use a different data directory in order to separate the experiment from your normal setup. On Linux/Mac you could do that by also adding --specter-data-folder YOURHOMEDIRECTORY/.specter_spectrum to the Specterd CLI args from the previous step. For MacOS, for example, YOURHOMEDIRECTORY is sth. like /Users/YOURUSERNAME.
• Save (Specter closes automatically if you click Continue)
• Restart the Specter app
• If you used a different data directory, don't be surprised, as you now won't see your usual wallets & devices. Remove the Specterd CLI args changes from above and you are be back to normal.
• Click the left "Get started" button:

Since Spectrum is still in alpha, it is not supported yet to use it alongside a connected Bitcoin Core node. If you are connected to a Bitcoin Core node, you will not see the screen above, so you'd need to do the following:

• Disconnect your Bitcoin Core node (not yet possible via the GUI, we will add this) by either saving it with an incorrect configuration or by stopping the node.
• Again, it's recommended to use a different data directory in order to separate the experiment from your normal setup (see above).
• Restart Specter
• You should now see the screen above.

Binaries

There are two types of binaries:

Specter Desktop

It's a windowed GUI application with Specter server included.
Supported platforms: Windows, MacOS, Linux (x86_64)

Note on Linux: you need to set up udev rules (included in the archive). Check out readme.

Note on macOS: The current build supports only macOS Catalina (10.15) or higher. If you'd like to run Specter on an older macOS version, you can install Specter from Pip.

specterd

It's a command-line program that only runs Specter server.
Supported platforms: Windows, MacOS, Linux (x86_64)

Signatures and hashes

SHA256SUMS file contains sha256 hashes of all binary files and signed with "Specter Signer's" GPG key.
You can get the public key from here.
Fingerprint of the key is 785A 2269 EE3A 9736 AC1A 4F4C 864B 7CF9 A811 FEF7
This key has been signed by @k9ert's key which you might have used for validating th 1.7.0 release.

Release notes

• Bugfix: autodetect from bitcoin.conf file with network set #2037 (kexkey)
• Bugfix: change settings_restore implementation #2042 (k9ert)
• Bugfix: fixes #1997 for Docker builds as well as command line installs #2053 (Michael Henke)
• Bugfix: internal node needs to be saved #2045 (k9ert)
• Chore: Bump json5 from 2.1.3 to 2.2.3 in /pyinstaller/electron #2039 (dependabot[bot])
• Chore: Bump minimatch from 3.0.4 to 3.1.2 #1966 (dependabot[bot])
• Chore: Bump minimatch from 3.0.4 to 3.1.2 in /pyinstaller/electron #1965 (dependabot[bot])
• Chore: Remove docker support #2054 (k9ert)
• Chore: some dependency improvements #2046 (k9ert)
• Chore: testing bridge_rpc errorhandling #2055 (k9ert)
• Docs: Add Documentation Link to Readme #2043 (k9ert)
• Docs: MacOS build instructions #2023 (Manolis Mandrapilias)
• Docs: Updated instructions to upgrade Specter on Raspiblitz #2040 (k9ert)
• Docs: Update of developer guide #2036 (Paarth Agarwal)
• Docs: Update release guide #2029 (Manolis Mandrapilias)
• Feature: delete spectrum node #2047 (k9ert)