This is hard needed. All the wallets are driving me nuts!
I don't know if QT wallets offer some kind of API system where they communicate commands within a system (non-tcp-ip). But then you could think of a proxy-wallet. A virtual wallet that needs the real wallet to function, but just helps in keeping everything manageable.
The reason I suggest this is because often wallets get updated to fix forks or issues like the 1doge minimum fee to prevent flooding the system. Effectively you also relay responsability for loss and hacking etc to the original wallets, not you. It would make development easier, I think, once past the stage where you have to figure out if you can communicate with individual wallets to provide VirtualWallet interface.
Also I think this would make updating existing wallets friendlier - your wallet could check for the latest version and notify a user.
I guess in a way I'm a bit inspired by MultiMiner and GUIminer, the first also notifying you of new updates (and downloading them upon user confirmation - great!).
Edit: Also perhaps running such wallets in a sandbox might be useful to prevent inter-wallet communication (in case of infected wallet download of some new Alt coin - I'm continuously worried about that).
The wallet, if I did my research right, does offer some kind of internal API, because the Qt wallet is just a GUI for bitcoind. When you say a "proxy-wallet", what you mean is the Qt wallet for the coin is directly downloaded to a special directory under the main Wallet's, to be used as a remote for manipulating altcoins? So the main Wallet would not hold coins, but would send commands to the right altcoin wallet? Tell me if I'm mistaken.
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Guac, if you use Skype add me. artw1982
Will do when I come home.
That is exactly what I am thinking of. A 'visual frontend' for altcoins you have.
Basically it would become a 'wallet manager' but with an interface that just makes it 'feel' like your coins are actually in the 'omni-wallet' shell. The software furthermore could work with auto-updating new wallets. Because the application is developed centrally theres a few people in charge of looking for updates to wallets (or they get notified by coin-makers, which is ofc. even better).
I am however also concerned about security and wonder if there is a way to sandbox all wallets (akin to a mini virtual machine). I just don't like the idea that wallets and the rest of my computer can interact.
Furthermore I *really* dislike the idea that wallets can access each others files (they are often in the same directory for management's sake, to make things worse).
Ideally the sandbox is two-way : The wallets can only see and access their OWN subdirectory. And nothing in your system can access the wallets because they are encrypted if the users so wishes (this could be a large button/option with mini why-to).
An other option in the wallet-shell could be to make backups of wallet.dat that are automatically zipped with SHA256 and perhaps uploaded or stored somewhere.
In the end many alt-coin wallets cause these problems that need to be solved:
1) Management of assets (list overall balance sheets)
2) Secure assets
3) Backup assets