Frontend related discussion

[Maxim Solodovnik <so...@gmail.com>]

(moved to dev@ list, context is cleaned up)

On Sun, 7 Mar 2021 at 02:36, seba.wagner@gmail.com <se...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> We should use that opportunity to also update the Dev options on how to run
> the JavaScript compile using NPM
>

IMO this should be obvious :)


> And update:
>
> https://openmeetings.apache.org/BuildInstructions.html#update-javascript-and-css-at-runtime
>
>
It's up to you,
this is something I'm not using


> There are btw also some really good plugins to compile CSS files. And
> enable usage of Sass https://sass-lang.com/
>
>
I don't see benefits of moving to sass ATM
such move will be invisible to end user
it will introduce new bugs
** I expect it would be harder to find "what need to be changed"
i.e. currently I copy/paste existing CSS selector and can jump to the place
it is defined
it will be much harder in case of SASS ....


> *I'm afraid these 4 front-end artifacts might need to be packed as one
> HUGE js file*
> => Please don't do that. It is a really good approach to split a website
> into multiple smaller JS files so you can work on those independently:
>
> https://martinfowler.com/articles/micro-frontends.html?utm_source=arador.com
>
>
TL;DR;
recently I moved browser detection to OmUtil
it was small refactoring
unfortunately the size of our JS files has grown a lot :(
this is because right now we have same browser detection library
and all its dependencies in 2 "js modules"

this js module separation produces smaller JS files
BUT
- now we can't use compiler (due to we can't specify "dependencies" for our
modules)
- and the code "accidentally" grows due to duplicate dependencies

The only way I see to address above: to create huge JS :(((


> We do *NOT* want to built yet another monolithic front end:
>
> https://xebia.com/blog/the-monolithic-frontend-in-the-microservices-architecture/
>
> I would rather like to see more code stripped into separated JS files out
> of Apache Wicket. If we need to share code between js files, let's build a
> node/npm module!
>

lots of small files will decrease performance
and compiler will not be your friend ....


>
> This will be also a great way to externalise common functionality and share
> it via: npmjs.com.
> Somebody for instance already built a NodeJS library to integrate with the
> Rest service: https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=keywords:openmeetings
> But some more front end related libraries would be great! And a great way
> to have front end developers being more excited about working with
> OpenMeetings!
>
> Also this would enable much easier to customise openmeetings on the Front
> End side by enabling a more modular design.
>
> Thanks
> Seb
>
> Sebastian Wagner
> Director Arrakeen Solutions, OM-Hosting.com
> http://arrakeen-solutions.co.nz/
> https://om-hosting.com - Cloud & Server Hosting for HTML5
> Video-Conferencing OpenMeetings
> <
> https://www.youracclaim.com/badges/da4e8828-743d-4968-af6f-49033f10d60a/public_url
> >
> <
> https://www.youracclaim.com/badges/b7e709c6-aa87-4b02-9faf-099038475e36/public_url
> >
>
>
> On Sat, 6 Mar 2021 at 17:11, Maxim Solodovnik <so...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Maybe you are right :)
> > I'm not very good at blogging :)
> >
> > I'm afraid these 4 front-end artifacts might need to be packed as one
> HUGE
> > js file :(
> > but this definitely should be other discussion :))
> >
>

-- 
Best regards,
Maxim