Hi, I am the developer of an open source multi-coin cryptocurrency platform called Moneywagon: https://github.com/priestc/moneywagon. Currently it supports BTC and BTC forks like LTC, DOGE, PPC, etc. The reason why it can support all those bitcoin forked currencies is because 99% of them are the same. Monero is not supported, but I want it to be supported. I am making this post because I want someone who is familiar with CryptoNote to help me understand how CryptoNote transactions are made.
Bitcoin's transaction encoding process works like such: You call a service that returns UTXO data. That UTXO data is passed into a bitcoin library like pybitcointools, BitcoinJ or Bitcore. The result is a transaction which you push to the network, then it gets mined into a block. LTC and DOGE use the exact same process, but I suspect Monero's method is quite a bit different.
Is there a Bitcore/BitcoinJ/pybitcointools like library for Monero? Is there a way to use Monero without needing to run a full node in the background? I found this: https://github.com/tippero/python-monero But it seems to only be a wrapper on top of the full node RPC interface. Is it possible to get coin data from an API service? I know Monero is supposed to be very private, which may make it impossible to build a wallet this way, but I don't know.
If Monero can get implemented in Moneywagon I think it would be very good for MOnero, as it would make it easier for people to build services that support Monero. For instance, multiexplorer.com runs on Moneywagon. If Moneywagon supports XMR, then multiexplorer will support XMR.