Support for electron-main process customization with DI #8076

kittaakos · 2020-06-23T11:12:48Z

What it does

This PR consists of the

original electron: use inversify in main process #7964 PR, and
Electron main fixup #8069 PR, that fixes a few macOS issues and the tests.

Closes #7964
Closes #8069

This PR contributes a JSON-RPC communication scheme between the electron-main process and the renderer processes. It is reusing the same architecture as the websocket-based connection between frontend/backend, but adapted to work over electron's ipc apis. Currently there isn't scoped connections, meaning that each renderer process will interact with the same singleton in the electron-main process, but for the current use-cases this is sufficient.

How to test

Review checklist

as an author, I have thoroughly tested my changes and carefully followed the review guidelines

Reminder for reviewers

as a reviewer, I agree to behave in accordance with the review guidelines

paul-marechal · 2020-06-23T14:35:51Z

Thank you for the changes! I fixed nitpicks I found, but I'm happy with this PR.

Although I'm having trouble marking the Added dummy [...] commit as authored by yourself... Can you maybe do git commit --amend --reset-author and force push again? Sorry for the inconvenience. I remember I correctly fixed commit authorship before, but cannot now for some reason.

kittaakos · 2020-06-23T14:46:26Z

Can you maybe do git commit --amend --reset-author and force push again? Sorry for the inconvenience.

I am fine with it, I do not really mind who's avatar is next to the commit. Is it a problem for you?

akosyakov · 2020-06-23T14:49:16Z

Could you elaborate please in What it does: how different parts to talk to each other and how JSON-RPC multiplexing works in context of Electron, just to understand?

common means that electron APIs can be used, what electron-common means? Why it cannot just go to common?

.travis.yml

paul-marechal

Tested on Windows.

The Electron application works correctly.
A workspace is correctly opened when doing yarn start <path>.
The electron-main contributions are picked up.
I can see the traces for when we close a window and the IPC connection shutdowns.

packages/electron/src/electron-main/electron-application.ts

kittaakos · 2020-06-23T14:52:32Z

I fixed nitpicks I found,

Alright, what exactly? It would be nice to share this info with others. I thought you will review my part instead of modifying and force pushing it; so we can see the changes.

akosyakov

looking at sample looks quite clean :+1 adding a short PR description about new architecture would be helpful in the future

akosyakov · 2020-06-23T14:55:05Z

Let's merge after the release, that's an arch change to merge in 3 days before the release.

paul-marechal

@kittaakos the nitpicks I had were so insignificant that I didn't want to just ask when I could just fix it. Sorry if you don't like me pushing to your branch, I will not do it again.

packages/electron/src/electron-main/electron-application.ts

paul-marechal · 2020-06-23T15:19:11Z

looking at sample looks quite clean :+1 adding a short PR description about new architecture would be helpful in the future

You are entirely right, I added a simple description in packages/electron/README.md.

I also updated the PR description.

paul-marechal · 2020-06-23T15:31:35Z

common means that electron APIs can be used, what electron-common means? Why it cannot just go to common?

These are interfaces really specific to electron. Someone importing those interfaces from a browser script should really feel bad seeing something coming from electron-common, hopefully avoiding small mistakes.

marcdumais-work · 2020-06-23T15:39:47Z

the nitpicks I had were so insignificant that I didn't want to just ask when I could just fix it. Sorry if you don't like me pushing to your branch, I will not do it again.

I just wanted to mention that GH has a feature that can help for such little "nitpicks", in a more transparent way: one can suggest changes, that the PR author can accept at the click of a button. See: https://help.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/incorporating-feedback-in-your-pull-request#applying-a-suggested-change

packages/electron/package.json

akosyakov · 2020-06-24T07:13:57Z

Why did we decide to pull code in @theia/electron? How do you envision working on the same product supporting browser and electron without adding an explicit dependency to @theia/electron? It used to be a package to add native modules only to assemble the electron product.

kittaakos · 2020-06-24T07:25:51Z

How do you envision working on the same product supporting browser and electron without adding an explicit dependency to @theia/electron?

As as a consumer of this change, I had the following understanding:

Let assume, you have an extension (my-ext-main) that works in both electron and web env, 👍
Your end product's package.json contains a bunch of @theia dependencies plus my-ext-main, we are still good 👍
Then you need something electron specific. You introduce a new my-ext-electron extension. This extension explicitly depends on @theia/electron and now you have to have a separate package.json for another product definition, and this package.json contains my-ext-main. The other does not.
This seems to be a good approach. Did I overlook something?

akosyakov · 2020-06-24T07:28:40Z

This seems to be a good approach. Did I overlook something?

The original approach that the same extension can contribute entry point with overrides for Electron. It looks like this PR makes it impossible as well as breaking downstream extensions doing it. It is visible in the PR itself since window entry point was unnecessary moved to @theia/electron.

You introduce a new my-ext-electron extension.

that should not be necessary

it needs more review for breaking changes

kittaakos · 2020-06-24T07:36:10Z

It is visible in the PR itself since window entry point was unnecessary moved to @theia/electron.

That does not matter, from a downstream project's perspective, it's not a change. I never referenced the electron-specific window implementation, and I had to depend on @theia/electron anyway.

akosyakov · 2020-06-24T07:57:29Z

Discussed with @kittaakos offline. It is indeed no-op for down streams, but there is a concern with how we divide code on extensions and js modules:

the responsibility of an extension should be to contribute some functionality
within the extension we separate which APIs can be used according to https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/wiki/Code-Organization

Introducing new extensions to separate by APIs goes against it. It would be good to revert changes to @theia/electron and merge new code into @theia/core and @theia/api-samples. If there is no any technical issues preventing it.

kittaakos · 2020-06-24T11:56:46Z

It seems one of the force pushes broke the open new workspace command. No matter what I try to open, it does not open anything and I have the purplish status bar in the browser window. :/ I will fix it as part of the dev-package moving.

All the logic for the electron main process currently has to be added to our generators, making it hard to extend without committing to Theia. This commit re-arranges the way Electron is launched to allow people to more easily change the behavior of their application. Add a basic CLI to open a workspace by doing `app path/to/workspace`. CLI can be overriden by application makers by extending and rebinding `ElectronApplication.launch` and handling yourself the `ExecutionParams`. Signed-off-by: Paul Maréchal <paul.marechal@ericsson.com> Co-Authored-By: Akos Kitta <kittaakos@typefox.io>

Signed-off-by: Akos Kitta <kittaakos@typefox.io>

kittaakos · 2020-06-24T13:43:32Z

OK, I have moved back everything that originally was under dev-packages/electron, and moved the new things under packages/core. The new things are mainly under packages/core/src/electron-main. I also wiped the electron example extension, and moved the dummy updater to api-samples. I am aware of at least two issues:

when I refresh the browser window, the backend contributions are not disposed. I guess we changed something accidentally, and the WS connection reconnects. It should not.
when I start the app from a terminal and have opened at least two windows. I see an error when I terminate the app from the terminal (on macOS) with Ctrl+C.

I am looking into these now.

kittaakos · 2020-06-25T08:07:30Z

To discuss:

https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/pull/7964/files#r445380379,
(add your item)

Signed-off-by: Akos Kitta <kittaakos@typefox.io>

paul-marechal · 2020-06-25T16:42:48Z

Small heads up that I'll look into this again not before the coming monday.

packages/core/src/node/cli.ts

packages/core/src/electron-common/messaging/electron-connection-handler.ts

packages/core/src/electron-browser/window/electron-window-service.ts

packages/core/src/common/messaging/abstract-connection-provider.ts

akosyakov · 2020-06-29T07:21:53Z

examples/api-samples/package.json

+      "electronMain": "lib/electron-main/update/sample-updater-main-module"
+    },
+    {
+      "frontendElectron": "lib/electron-browser/updater/sample-updater-frontend-module"


It should belong to the previous entry point?

Yes, true. Thanks!

packages/core/src/electron-main/electron-application.ts

akosyakov · 2020-06-29T07:34:10Z

My comments are minor, changes are looking good now. I have not tried though, waiting for the final version.

packages/core/src/electron-main/electron-application.ts

packages/core/src/browser/messaging/ws-connection-provider.ts

Signed-off-by: Paul Maréchal <paul.marechal@ericsson.com>

kittaakos · 2020-07-01T14:08:52Z

Closing in favor of #8125

kittaakos requested review from thegecko, akosyakov and paul-marechal June 23, 2020 11:12

thegecko changed the title ~~Support for elecrton-main process customization with DI~~ Support for electron-main process customization with DI Jun 23, 2020

vince-fugnitto added the electron issues related to the electron target label Jun 23, 2020

paul-marechal force-pushed the electron-main-fixup branch 4 times, most recently from d71cef3 to 3c82aa0 Compare June 23, 2020 14:33

akosyakov reviewed Jun 23, 2020

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paul-marechal approved these changes Jun 23, 2020

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akosyakov previously approved these changes Jun 23, 2020

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paul-marechal reviewed Jun 23, 2020

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paul-marechal force-pushed the electron-main-fixup branch 2 times, most recently from 2ff0ede to f875177 Compare June 23, 2020 15:10

akosyakov reviewed Jun 24, 2020

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paul-marechal and others added 2 commits June 24, 2020 14:59

Added a dummy electron-updater sample.

f443971

Signed-off-by: Akos Kitta <kittaakos@typefox.io>

kittaakos force-pushed the electron-main-fixup branch from f875177 to f443971 Compare June 24, 2020 13:35

fixed disposal when refreshig the browser window

0bf31fb

Signed-off-by: Akos Kitta <kittaakos@typefox.io>

This was referenced Jun 26, 2020

electron: use inversify in main process #7964

Merged

Electron master extension #4127

Closed