Developing With The Frontends¶

The Peek Platform is extensible with plugins. Unlike with the Python code, the frontend code can’t be just imported. The frontend code in the plugins have to be combined into build directories for each service.

This document describes how Peek combines the Frontend / Angular files into build projects.

The frontends are the Admin, Mobile and Desktop services.

Admin builds:
- Only a Web app, using @angular/cli
Field builds:
- A Web app, using @angular/cli
Office builds:
- An Electron app.
- A Web app, using @angular/cli

The platform code for combining the files for the frontends is at: https://bitbucket.org/synerty/peek-platform/src/master/peek_platform/build_frontend/

Combining Files¶

The Logic, Office, and Field services prepare the build directories for all the frontends.

Peek originally used symbolic links to integrate the plugins, this approach become harder and harder to manage with both cross platform support and increasing complexity of the plugin integrations with the frontend.

Peek now uses a file copy approach, that is handled by the Logic, Office, and Field services. There were many things to consider when implementing this code, considerations include:

Incremental file updates. Don’t rewrite the file if it hasn’t changed. This causes problems with development tools incorrectly detecting file changes.

Allow on the fly modifications. Peek rewrites parts of the frontend code on the fly.

Angular Ahead of Time Compilation. The final nail in the symlink approach was Angular AoT Compilation support.

Plugins in node_modules. Plugins in the frontends can leverage each other. For example, other plugins can leverage services from peek_core_user for user authentication. To do this, Peek copies files into node_modules.

End user customisation. The ability for the end user to overwrite files with out having to fork plugins, etc.

The file copy process, AKA “prepare” or “Combine”, is fairly simple:

Use the list of loaded plugins
Read the plugin_package.json
Copy and transform files based on plugin_package.json settings.
Create static files for:
1. Lazy loading routes for plugins
2. Global services from plugins
3. Home icon and Menu items
4. etc
Compile plugin code copied to node_modules.
Copy required files to the platform directory.

At this point the build directories are prepared and ready to run.

End User Customisations¶

End users, as in not developers, have the ability to hack the frontends. They may do this to change text, update icons, branding, etc.

Note

The following directory overlay is for the web app directory.

Peek reads files from either the ~/peek-logic-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir or ~/peek-office-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir directories and overlays them on top of the build directories.

This provides end users with the ability to alter any part of the Electron, Web or Capacitor frontends by copying a file into the customisation directory and then altering it.

This is a use at their own risk feature.

The following property is present in the Peek Logic, Office, and Field *-service.home/config.json files.

{
    ...
    "frontend": {
        ...
        "frontendSrcOverlayDir": "/home/peek/peek-office-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir",
        "frontendNodeModuleOverlayDir": "/home/peek/peek-office-service.home/frontendNodeModuleOverlayDir",
    },
    ...
}

#1 Copy the plugin build directory into the frontend folder

cp -r synerty-peek-1.3.4/lib/python3.6/site-packages/peek_office_app/src/peek_plugin_enmac_diagram peek-office-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir/

#2 Remove the files not being updated (we’re updating pofDiagram.component.web.html)

cd peek-office-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir/peek_plugin_enmac_diagram/
rm -rf coord-set/ show-diagram/ *.ts

#3 Edit the file and restart Peek

vi pofDiagram.component.web.html
p_restart.sh

#4 Monitor the logs and refresh Peek Desktop

http://peekserver:8002/peek_plugin_enmac_diagram

# 5 Undo the changes

rm -rf ~/peek-office-service.home/frontendSrcOverlayDir/peek_plugin_enmac_diagram
p_restart.sh

Live Updating for Development¶

Both Capacitor and Angular CLI have development tools that provide live sync + refresh support.

Meaning, you can alter your code, save, and the tools will recompile, and update the apps. Angular CLI will update the code for the web page and reload it, Capacitor will copy the generated bundles to the iOS and Android directories to be used in xcode and Android Studio.

Peek’s frontend preparation code creates maps of where files should be copied from and to, then monitors all the source directories, and incrementally updates files as the developer works. This includes performing any on the fly changes to the files that are required.

To enable file syncing, in file(s) ~/peek-logic-service.home/config.json or ~/peek-office-service.home/config.json set frontend.syncFilesForDebugEnabled to true and restart the appropriate service.

You may also want to disable the web building. This isn’t required for the Angular CLI development server and it slows down Peek Logic, Office, and Field restarts. Set frontend.webBuildEnabled to false.

If DEBUG logging is also enabled, you’ll see Peek working away when you change files.

{
    ...
    "frontend": {
        ...
        "syncFilesForDebugEnabled": true,
        "webBuildEnabled": false,
        ....
    },
    "logging": {
        "level": "DEBUG"
    },
    ...
}

Now when you run:

# Start Angular CLI live dev server
npm start

The web apps will automatically update as the developer changes things.

build-web¶

To build the dist dir, and serve it on a normal port run:

ng build -w

The -w option listens for changes.

To run the packages start scripts run:

npm start

Auto refreshes, deletes the dist that ng build creates, and the proxy settings for file resources and http vortex.

Developing on iOS Devices¶

Before Peek can be deployed the signing certificate must be transfered to the device using Xcode.

To develop with iOS you’ll need a developer account on https://developer.apple.com

Troubleshooting¶

OSError: inotify instance limit reached¶

If you receive an error when starting the Peek Logic, Office, and Field services on Linux, stating OSError: inotify instance limit reached, running the following command may solve the issue.

sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=200000

Otherwise, try rebooting.