895600 - Set up thimble-like publication path

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Webmaker Graveyard :: X-Ray Goggles, defect)

Description

[Pomax]

Both Thimble and X-Ray Goggles share the "hackpub" publication concept, while it makes sense to implement publish/view for x-ray goggles as a separate thing while we do initial stand-up, it would be a good idea to create a hackpub node module that both Thimble and X-Ray Goggles can tap into instead.

Comment 1

[Pomax]

There are some interesting problems here. A short list of facts:

* Thimble and X-Ray goggles publish the same kind of thing. Treating them the same would seem to make sense
* Thimble knows how to publish new data, but also has db code for fetching old data.
* Goggles currently only knows how to save to a DB (no S3 publish, no makes, etc).
* local persona auth works for both Thimble and Goggles, but we can't publish to thimble's endpoint due to persona and csrf.

We could write a "hackpub" publish API that both thimble and goggles hook into using basicauth, similar to the loginapi, or we could make thimble a submodule for goggles and simply use its ./lib/middleware, database handler and db models to effect the same publish path in both.

Thoughts most welcome on which path we want to go down.

Comment 3

[Jon Buckley [:jbuck]]

If you want to share code between googles and thimble, write some sort of a shared node module and throw it up on github.

I don't think that Googles should publish into any of Thimble's stuff though. I think that they're different modes of editing, and we should preserve that by adding opening/editing to Googles.

Comment 4

[Pomax]

they're different modes of editing, but they generate exactly the same thing. Hackpub data. And once you publish with goggles, further editing means you have to use thimble - goggles has no "edit" mode, it's a "hack once, publish" service. I strongly disagree with making the goggles a component that can also edit, but this is a good topic for discussing during a video conference.

Comment 6

[David Humphrey (:humph)]

I agree with the idea of doing a separate node module for the bits of publishing that are shared between the two, and keeping that overlap as small as is workable, so we don't develop problems later when they need to diverge in some way.

I also think that we want to keep our tools focused, and not have them grow in scope.  The Goggles are a tool for hacking this current page.  Thimble is a tool for editing pages.  Let's not have 2 editing apps.

Comment 7

[Pomax]

Setting up the same code that thimble uses, modified for goggles-specific publications (no embed shell, title handling, etc) in https://github.com/pomax/goggles.webmaker.org/tree/mvp

Comment 8

[Pomax]

https://github.com/mozilla/goggles.webmaker.org has been updated with a working MVP

* same publication code as thimble, but with modifications to publish embed-shell-less (allowing goggles -> publish -> goggles on that -> publish -> ad infinitum)
* DB independent of Thimble
* SSO only on publish (you can hack as much as you want, login only bothers you when you want to publish to the web)

this publishes makes to the MakeAPI as x-x-ray-goggles, so the make will show up as being made by "x-ray-goggles", and page titles are "My hack of [original page title]" with a description "An X-Ray Goggles hack of [original page title]".

Comment 9

[Pomax]

ticket intention has been fulfilled, moving on to the next step in this adventure.