1112049 - Make WebIDE work better with github projects (and other project hosted at non-root paths)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(DevTools Graveyard :: WebIDE, defect)

Description

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

** STR
1. git clone http://github.com/openberg/lector-dev (any app hosted on github should do);
2. open the directory with WebIDE as a packaged app;
3. notice that WebIDE cannot find the icon, index.html, etc.

** Reason
This project is hosted at
  http://openberg.github.io/lector-dev

so the Open Web App manifest must prefix all files with
  /lector-dev/
e.g.
 "launch-path": "/lector-dev/index.html"

Note that the manifest is itself hosted in the same directory as index.html (or a subdirectory). However, WebIDE attempts to open the application as a packaged application, hence resolves all paths from the manifest.

Consequently, "/lector-dev/index.html/" (and icons, etc.) is searched in a subdirectory, while the file is actually "index.html", in the same directory.

Comment 1

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

I suspect that this was caused deliberately by bug 758083, but we should find something more convenient.

Comment 2

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Yes, this is kind of a tricky case today.  At the moment, WebIDE forces you to choose either:

1. I am making a packaged app and the manifest is relative to the project / source directory

OR

2. I have a hosted app I want to install at some manifest URL

but path 2 (hosted app) means you can't edit anything at all in WebIDE currently.

We could make a change to better support editing a hosted app as if it were packaged, but that's somewhat unnatural, because the permissions allowed for hosted vs. packaged apps are different, so you'd see different behavior while developing than when deployed.

So, perhaps a better answer is to allow editing hosted apps for real when the source exists?  Then to deploy them, we could run a local HTTP server, and install the app as a real hosted app, pointing at the development URL to ensure it matches the reality of hosted apps.  This is quite similar to future work for supporting regular websites.  Does this sound good for your use case?

Comment 3

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

Yes, that would certainly be a better solution.

Filed bug 1113570 about issues specific to appcache in such a setting.

Comment 4

[David Teller [:Yoric] - still alive but not very active]

By the way, I still want to be able to send the application to the device, either as a url (in which case the device should open the browser, and the WebIDE console should display the browser's output) or as an installed app (as it is now).

Comment 5

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

WebIDE is slated for removal (bug 1314811), so there are no plans to add to the current set of features.