Using AngularJS in an embedded system without an internet connection - javascript

Good morning,
I am looking to implement a single page web application on an embedded system. The catch is that it may not have an internet connection so I can't depend on external sources for features.
I would like to use AngularJS, but the system will not have the Node Package Manager installed. Is it possible to deploy an Angular application through a standard web server?
Thanks in advance.

It is very much possible to run angular without npm on a standard web server. The key here is that AngularJs is a javascript library and doesn't rely on binaries. All you need to do is be able to connect to it from a browser.
If your html contains a link to the address of the file such as:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="js/angular.min.js"></script>
As long as the browser has access to http://YourserverAddress/js/angular.min.js it should load angular in the same way as using npm or a CDN

I have a idea.
If the embedded system have a browser, I think it's possible.
The thing you just should to do is let your javascript source run in the browser.
So, customize the browser, let it run your source directly.

Related

Is there a way to implement IPC to a HTML5 web browser (served using LAMP server)?

Forgive me if this is a silly question but I could really use advice on the direction to look at for a project I am working on.
I made a webserver that streams RTSP to a webpage using LAMP, php and mysql; and served a html template. This was done on a raspberry pi and it all works fine as is. Also done on an Ubuntu VM.
EXAMPLE I FOLLOWED: https://www.thewebblinders.in/programming/article/rtsp-streaming-on-a-web-browser-6069
The next part of my project was to add buttons to the html page, that when pressed send a universal protocol command. I found that I needed to do this using IPC (inter-process communication) however I'm not really sure how to implement this to what I have now.
At the moment my system works simply as a html webpage that is served from /var/www/html using npx http-server --cors (from the open source server environment NODE.js)
I'm not really sure how I could implement a python or javascript back end that communicates to something like electron.js (I tried the latter method but had no success).
Would it be a separate program that acts as a server that hosts the html page instead of Node.js? Would I still keep my templates and methods in the LAMP src directory (/var/www/html)?
Any advice on the possible direction I could look at would be a lot of help. I've not found much online that discusses IPC work on html templates served by node.js. The only html related topic I've seen relating to it is JavaScript with electron.js and that changes the way my webserver is ran.
Thanks for taking the time.

Lauching .bat or .exe client-side

I face an issue for a client who need to launch an application from a ASP.Net website client side. For the moment the solution is using ActiveX, but we all want to find an other way to do this action.
I read this links to find informations :
Is it possible to run an .exe or .bat file on 'onclick' in HTML
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
I know that for security issues, browsers don't allow the launch of client applications, but did someone find a hack to do something like that and have a sample to post ?
Have a good day
The technology exists for YEARS and it's called ClickOnce.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/142dbbz4%28v=vs.90%29.aspx
It requires the .NET Framework at the client side and a support from a browser (some browsers require a plugin to correctly handle ClickOnce apps).
Applications are deployed either in a form of a self-extracting installer (setup.exe) or a link to an XML document, the manifest, that describes location of other components (appname.application). In any case, a client just clicks a link, the app is downloaded and run locally, using local client permissions.
In particular, the app can read/write local files, use certificates from the local store, print documents using local printers, call other services ever if they are cross-domain etc.
And note that such ClickOnce application can run client local processes without any restrictions. We use this feature for years and it sounds like this is exactly your scenario.
Theoretically it could happen if a service was listening on some predefined port and the application simply sent a specific request to that port.
Other than that, I don't think it's possible to directly execute an application on the user's computer.

Can I open a Windows Explorer window from a web app?

I built a CRM for a client of mine, and now they've requested an interesting feature:
For each customer record, they have a matching directory of files on their local computer. They want the ability to open that folder in Windows Explorer directly from within the web app (the app doesn't need access to the directory/files; it just has to launch Windows Explorer so that the user can interact with their files).
This is obviously not possible with regular JavaScript running in the browser (thankfully). I thought there might be some way to accomplish this by building a Chrome extension for this purpose, but it seems Chrome extensions/apps can only access a sandboxed filesystem, which doesn't serve my needs at all. Building an NPAPI plugin in out of the question since Chrome is discontinuing support for NPAPI.
File URIs don't solve this problem either. Their display is ugly, there's no drag-and-drop, no big icons/thumbnails, no sorting etc. They want the full capability of the Windows Explorer.
The only viable option I thought of is to create a local node.js server, make a localhost CORS request to that server, and then run an exec command from node.
Any better idea?
One possibility is to register a custom URI protocol handler with the user's operating system, and then your web page can contain links using your custom protocol, such as openfolder://c/path/to/folder This sort of customization is probably most commonly seen in practice with itunes:// links.
A quick Google search led me to this decent looking tutorial: https://support.shotgunsoftware.com/hc/en-us/articles/200213756-How-to-launch-external-applications-using-custom-protocols-rock-instead-of-http-
The downside is that the user will have to run a small installer of some sort in order to set the correct registry entries (or whatever the non-Windows equivalent is for other OSes) and to drop a small script on disk. That would be much lighter-weight than running a node.js server like you proposed, though.
The linked tutorial uses a Python script, but even that is probably overkill for your needs. A batch file would likely suffice.
EDIT: One additional note, please be aware of the security implications of implementing a custom handler like this. Any webpage in any browser can potentially take advantage of your custom protocol, and an attacker would be able to pass arbitrary data to your script. You should take steps to ensure that the script will not accidentally execute arbitrary commands that may be injected by a malicious web page, and that it will only open a folder and nothing else.
That would require each customer to run a node.js server, which seems unrealistic in your case.
You could use File URIs.
Browsers will refuse to open them by default. However, as suggested in this answer, you could ask your customers to install LocalLinks.

Phonegap: flexible iOS app update (No AppStore)

I have a Phonegap iOS app. My app is distributed privately, hence there is and there will be no usage of the app store. The app communicates with a homebrew middleware. In order to manage the app updates, I thought about doing something like:
-> On app start, check if a more recent version is available.
-> If yes then call a home-made Javascript module that will leverage the HTML5 file I/O API in order to update/create/delete files based on the output of the middleware.
In your opinion; is this solution reliable?
Are there any alternatives? (app store is completely out of the picture)
With a PhoneGap/Cordova app you normally load files from your local www folder. The problem with updating files at runtime is that you cannot write to the www location - you can only write to your app's 'documents' folder.
I assume you are using an Enterprise distribution since you are distributing without the app store. You could look at using something like TestFlight to distribute updates if you are happy for the users to have to go and check for updates.
You could also eliminate TestFlight and host the ipa files yourself, check for updates and then ask the user to download and install the update.
EDIT
It is not possible to write to the www folder with or without a plugin. This is due to iOS restrictions rather than PhoneGap/Cordova restrictions.
These links talk about distributing Enterprise apps over-the-air
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/FA_Wireless_Enterprise_App_Distribution/Introduction/Introduction.html
IOS Enterprise Distribution Through OTA
Enterprise In-House App distribution
I was considering using the www folder as a bootstrap to download the actual app in a www folder in the document directory, and loading the index.html page from there (and the rest of the app)
I'm wondering if that would be an option
Of course the ObjectiveC UIWebView would point to the downloaded version if it exists
I know this is an old question, but the accepted answer is no longer correct. Here's a complete project showing how it can be done: https://github.com/ben-ng/phonegap-air
In short, the trick is to not write to the app bundle, but to the Documents directory.
There's an alternate service called Trigger.io. It is a lot like phonegap, but one of its' key features is that it lets you "reload" the app on the device, which is essentially what you're looking for, AFAICT.
So it seems that cordava can only load files that are in the app bundle. You cannot simply alter the webroot parameter to take the documents folder.
What you could do is use the FileReader API to read from the persistent store. This would mean you would have to create some sort of bootstrap html / javascript that is in the app bundle and create code that loads the content from the persistent store (which you can update yourself anytime you like)
This is a great place to start looking: Cordava File API docs

loading jQuery in webbrowser control from the filesystem

Here's my scenario:
I'm using the WebBrowser control in a WinForms app to display data. The HTML is served via the DocumentText property and I want to use jQuery to interact with the contents. Loading jQuery from the web (Google APIs) works:
actual html inside DocumentText, head block:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
// jquery specific functions...
</script>
I want to load the jQuery file from the filesystem, like this:
<script type="text/javascript" src="file:///E:/path/to/jquery.js"></script>
But it fails. I reckon it is blocked by IE's security zone settings (about:blank anyone?). I've tried using MotW but that doesn't work either. How do I do this properly?
You could think about embedding a simple HTTP server into your application running on its own thread. Maybe not be perfect but may just do what you require.
See Embedded .NET HTTP Server or Simple HTTP Server Skeleton in C# as two examples.
Whether this architecture is right for you is another story, but it may just allow you to server static content locally without having to worry about the security restrictions of your control. You may have some firewall issues but I would say this should be minimal as your connections are all over loopback.
Hope this offers something to think about anyway....
Quick fix #49: create temporary html files in Path.GetTempPath() and navigate to them. This way, there are less restrictions, so local resources like scripts are allowed to run. Cleanup on exit.
Bonus: Automatic caching.
Use awesomium1 webbrowser control. It supports jquery on Winforms and WPF. It is free for non-commercial apps. I am planning on recommending it for some of my employers legacy apps which cause headaches with IE8 support.

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