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Bug 336166

Summary: Allow client-side code to be updated at runtime for the purposes of development
Product: [RT] RAP Reporter: Austin Riddle <austin.riddle>
Component: RWTAssignee: Project Inbox <rap-inbox>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P3    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
Attachments:
Description Flags
[Git patch] Function sketch of the feature described none

Description Austin Riddle CLA 2011-02-02 16:56:29 EST 
As a UI developer, I find myself constantly needing to tweak css themes or test custom widget (javascript) changes in our RAP apps. This is a tedious task due to the need to restart the server-side app, which is time consuming.

What would be nice is to allow a developer to tell the RAP app to run in debug mode, whereby various resources such as .js files, themes and images that may have been changed since application start can be made available to subsequent client sessions.

Example:

"Programmer A" starts his RAP application.  He sets up some potentially complicated test situations in the application and then sees that he needs to make changes to the theme.css file. He makes those changes and refreshes his browser. Because he is running in debug mode, the application "reprocesses" those changed files and the new session includes his changes to the css.  The same case applies to "Programmer B" who desires to make changes to his custom widget javascript.  He doesn't want to have to restart the server-side application, only refresh his browser to see the client-side changes he made similar to a conventional client-side web app.
Comment 1 Austin Riddle CLA 2011-02-02 17:19:09 EST 
Created attachment 188201 [details]
[Git patch] Function sketch of the feature described

I have put together a functional demo of the idea as a sketch of the potential end solution. If you apply this patch, your app will allow server-side resources to be "refreshed" for the next session. All you have to do is specify the url parameter debug=true from your browser.

Then you can change any custom javascript or theme css files you may have and the changed code will be made available upon next refresh with that parameter.

The key here is that this feature is meant to be used at development time to ease the burdens of client-side code development.

In our office this patch has become quite useful, even if it is only a first-stab.

Sorry, could only provide a Git patch at the moment. CVS patch coming.
Comment 2 Ivan Furnadjiev CLA 2011-02-03 06:13:17 EST 
*** Bug 332787 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Ivan Furnadjiev CLA 2011-02-03 06:27:53 EST 
There is a similar enhancement request in bug 318426.