replace FileTransfer plugin with HttpClient

[westphalen]

cordova-plugin-file-transfer deprecation #124
Tested, working, with the most recent Ionic version on Android. This should be backwards compatible with the existing @angular/common dependency, but I don't know the meaning of trustAllHosts, and if it needs to be implemented again.

[ihadeed]

Interesting.. thanks for the PR.

• Setting trustAllHosts to true would tell the HTTP client to not verify SSL hosts. That would be inseucre, but helps in development. I think it should be fine to remove the option. SSLs are easy & free to get now, if someone is having problems with their self-signed SSL, they can easily get a trusted one in matter of minutes.
• Did you compare the performance of FileTransfer vs HttpClient?

[westphalen]

I haven't had the opportunity to compare performance, as my current project was completely unable to build with the file-transfer dependency. But it's a good point, I might find find time to set up a project with older dependencies, so I can test file-transfer vs HttpClient.

[westphalen]

Performance tests weren't impressive, and a breaking change will be that image resources must have CORS headers to be loaded through xhr.

You can see my comparison here: https://github.com/westphalen/ionic-image-loader-benchmark

I don't know how we could improve performance. But something has to be done, since it is simply not possible to build a new Ionic project with ionic-image-loader at the moment.

[ihadeed]

1. Why are you unable to build your project with FileTransfer dependency?
2. I have a WIP plugin here that performs faster than FileTransfer and XHR: https://github.com/zyra/cordova-plugin-native-http ... I can probably finish it up and use it here.

[westphalen]

To answer the dependency problem:

$ ionic start ionic-image-loader-test blank
? Would you like to integrate your new app with Cordova to target native iOS and Android? Yes
$ ionic cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file
$ ionic cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file-transfer
$ ionic cordova platform add android
Installing "cordova-plugin-file-transfer" for android
Failed to install 'cordova-plugin-file-transfer': CordovaError: Version of installed plugin: "cordova-plugin-file@6.0.1" does not satisfy dependency plugin requirement "cordova-plugin-file@^5.0.0". Try --force to use installed plugin as dependency.
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/cordova-lib/src/plugman/install.js:557:37
    at _fulfilled (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/q/q.js:787:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/q/q.js:816:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/q/q.js:749:13)
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/q/q.js:509:49
    at flush (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/node_modules/q/q.js:108:17)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:131:7)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)

Error: Version of installed plugin: "cordova-plugin-file@6.0.1" does not satisfy dependency plugin requirement "cordova-plugin-file@^5.0.0". Try --force to use installed plugin as dependency.

I don't know if you can inject the --force param somehow (ionic cordova platform add android -- --force doesn't work), but a temporary workaround might be to force a lower cordova-plugin-file version, but then you have to adjust versions of other packages that depend on the file plugin as well, and in some of my projects those are more than a few, so not very practical.

[ihadeed]

You can try two things.

Option A: use --force option (not sure if it will work)

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file-transfer --force

Option B: Downgrade the File plugin

cordova plugin rm cordova-plugin-file
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-file@^5.0.0

You might need to delete plugins, platforms, node_modules, package-lock.json before doing that.. to make sure no old files interfere with anything.

[westphalen]

Like I said, I have other dependencies that will start complaining if I downgrade cordova-plugin-file back to ^5.0.0, so we certainly need a long-term solution, unless you want to put instructions in README on using outdated dependencies.

[allanpoppe]

I agree with @westphalen. Cordova itself is recommending to use HttpClient over FileTransfer. I can't have File plugin outdated neither. I'm testing his fork and it's playing nicely on Android.
This is a nice module @ihadeed. Let us keep using it.

[ihadeed]

@allanpoppe Yeah I'm thinking to just merge this and move forward in this direction. The purpose of this plugin is to (1) load images faster than alternative methods and (2) cache them. This will still keep the project on track.

If I ever finish that native HTTP project, I'll implement in this plugin, and maybe make it optional (give users option between Native or HttpClient).

[allanpoppe]

Very nice @ihadeed !

[allanpoppe]

Any news on accepting this PR this @ihadeed ?