embedding dual apps with webserver - google-chrome-app

I've run into issues when running a web server in an app that is embedded using the AppView approach.
The background is that we need to run two applications in Kiosk mode (digital signage implementation).
There is a primary app and a supporting application running, the support application needs to run a local web server for configuration and control purposes.
The web server needs to be accessible from external browsers.
I have had some success embedding the app with the web server and being able to access from a browser running on the same device, but not remotely.
These tests have only been done in desktop rather than kiosk mode.
From what I can tell the Manifest for both the embedded and host apps are correct, in that the apps run in single app mode ok.
The apps will embed using the AppView tag.
as per... https://developer.chrome.com/apps/tags/appview
1 - Is it possible to embed a web server as per the above senario?
2 - Are there any additional properties needed in the manifest
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
P.S.
There are a few additional undocumented requirements for the embedding to work in Kiosk mode.
Such as listing the apps ID in the in the manifest for the container app.
i.e. you need to include "kiosk_secondary_apps" with a list of kiosk mode apps that you want to embed.

Related

Web Serial API Not Persisting Port Access

I'm building a PWA with Nuxt.js that uses the Web Serial API to communicate with our proprietary hardware. It works as expected (i.e. the port will be available without user action the next time you load the web app unless the browser security is reset) on Windows 10/11 and macOS devices, but the device this application will be running on is a Raspberry Pi 4 running the latest stable Rasbian release. On the only two browsers I've found that can run on the Raspberry Pi and support the Web Serial API are Chromium and Vivaldi. In both of those browser, there is an issue remembering which port(s) the user has already allowed access to.
In Chromium, even a page refresh will cause the port permissions to reset, requiring the user grant access to the serial port again. In Vivaldi, the permissions can survive a page refresh, but restarting to browser will cause it to forget any prior port authorizations.
I have not been able to find any option to whitelist websites in the browser settings the way you can for some other security/privacy options, like you can with things like website clipboard access, nor any way to disable the security feature altogether.
This will be running on custom hardware that ships with the software, so there are no limitations to what can be modified to resolve or work around this. The device is touchscreen only, and the app will be running in a fullscreen kiosk mode at boot. There just needs to be some way to prevent the user from needing to select a port like /dev/s0 and grant the web app access to it every single time they turn the device on.

Use external mongodb in mobile build of Meteor

I've seen in a lot of places that in order to use an External Mongodb in Meteor applications, you should use an Environment Variable MONGO_URL. However, I'm building my application to work both as web app and mobile app (by generating an apk).
The problem is that when I start meteor as MONGO_URL='mongodb://user:pwd#path.mlab.com:9999/db' meteor it works well in my computer. But, it's not possible (I haven't found any way of doing so yet) to do this in mobile.
So, anyone has any idea of how I could use an external mongodb in mobile applications?
Thanks!
It seems to me that you are confused about how Meteor works, and more generally the client-server architecture.
Only your server has access to your database (whether on the same machine or at a third party provider), so that you keep control of exactly what your Client has access to.
By "Client", we mean what your visitor uses to access your app, whether a web app through a browser, or a mobile app through a Cordova wrapper.
So your mobile app only needs to know the URL of the server it has to connect to. That is specified by the --server option when you do your meteor build.
Then your server needs to know how to access the external MongoDB. This is your MONGO_URL environment variable. In production, you would set this variable on your server host. Each provider offers a different method to configure those environment variables, most of the time there is a graphical administration panel.
Note that the way Meteor works, you can use the same server to support both your web app and mobile app at the same time.
Finally, you can also test on mobile using meteor run android instead of just meteor (or with ios instead of Android, but you need a Mac). Of course you can still specify your MONGO_URL variable in the CLI when testing, exactly like you have done when testing on browser.
For mobile (cordova) meteor applications think of the app as just a web view with the ability to access native device features (camera, bluetooth ...). Since the application is basically a web view, the underlying mongodb associated with it is the same. If you want mobile device specific storage take a look at GroundDB
For your situation, if sounds like your mobile app is having problems connecting to your server, ultimately not allowing it to pull data from the mongoDB. Make sure that when you build the mobile application you have server specifed '--mobile-server'. Also if you are running it locally, make sure your mobile device is on the same network as your computer and any firewalls that might not allow connections are disabled.

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We have a system which has Windows 8.1 store app and iPad solutions as frontends and a MVC web as the backend.
We have lot of clients and they prefer hosting the web on premise due to sensitivity of the data. (So no cloud hosting)
Each client runs on different versions of the backend and for those we provide according frontend version as well.
Eg: 3.15.5 backend we have 3.15.5 frontend iPad app. (Backend provides a download link to iPad app, it will automatically update the existing app in the iPad)
(We can't make the frontend apps backward compatible due to high maintenance)
But for our Windows 8.1 app also we have relevant versions but we don't know how to deploy it simply.
We can't ask the customer to run powershell scripts either.
We can't use the Windows store because every time we publish the latest version of the app all our backends need to upgrade as well. Which is not possible due to large no of clients we have.
So my question is how do I provide a simple download solution for Windows 8.1 app that can be operate by a non IT personal?

IBM MobileFirst issue with securityTest="wl_unprotected" in IBM Containers

My adapter is running in an IBM Container. I have marked all my procedures as securityTest="wl_unprotected".
Everything works fine locally when testing with browser simulation, but fails when I try the same after deploying both the app and adapter in container.
I do get my first page pulling data correctly, but subsequent calls for navigating to other pages of the application fail. All I see is following error messge
http://134.168.16.88:9080/MobileFirstStarter/authorization/v1/clients/preview?applicationId=econfig_poc_mf&applicationVersion=1.0&environment=common&isAjaxRequest=true&x=0.06548149750907506
With status as "404 Not Found"
I am not sure why this is failing in a container but working fine locally
In an external server environment there is no preview available - the servlet that allows previewing of an application is not present, which is expected.
Previewing applications is available only in the development environment, locally.
If you'd like to preview your application once moving to an external server environment (QA, UAT, Production... bluemix or not), you'll need to test it in a device. Alternatively you could add the Mobile Web or Desktop Browser environments as well, which will allow previewing in the browser (but of course may not have all capabilities available to a Mobile app).

Local Facebook App Development using localhost

Is it possible to develop facebook apps locally on my system so that the callback URL need not be a public URL like http://abc.com and instead can be an internal IP address like localhost http://127.0.0.1?
It is now possible to develop Facebook apps locally.
I believe this is true especially if you're developing in an iframe, which is now the standard way of developing facebook apps (FBML is deprecated).
In case this does not work, there are still some ways to make working more convenient.
Take a look at this answer:
Testing FB apps is still a rather primitive process.
I generally setup a test application that is a complete copy of the production settings inside the FB development environment that uses an SSH tunnel to point to my development server. You can setup as many applications as you need inside FB - I generally have a development application, a staging app and production. Staging and Production are both on "live" servers rather than an SSH tunnel.
The rest of the answers to this question detail different workflows that people have utilized to make it more convenient to develop on a remote host.
you can use http://127.0.0.1/ProjectName as the callback url, or your ip address itself