Standard WG Meeting - August 22nd, 2024

[kriswest]

Date

Thursday 22nd August 2024 - 10am (US eastern timezone EDT) / 3pm (London, BST)

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Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• Review action items from previous meeting (5mins)
  • Standard WG Meeting - July 25th, 2024 #1292
• Announcements
  • Status of FDC3 for the Web
  • Generated context docs
  • FDC3 for .NET docs
  • FDC3 monorepo #1297
• Inconsistent Use of Promises #1294 & Make Listener.unsubscribe() async for consistency #1300
• Question: Disposal/Teardown patterns in FDC3 #1263
• Add property to support analytics across apps #1290
• Standardize the representation of currency pairs by fdc3.instrument #1291
• AOB & Adjourn (5mins)

Minutes

• Announcements

  • Status of FDC3 for the Web
    • Intending to raise the completed protocol and software addition as [@experimental}(https://fdc3.finos.org/docs/fdc3-compliance#experimental-features) - but expecting to remove the label quickly as there are already 1 OS implementation and 2 commercial implementations in the works.
  • Generated context docs
    • Checkout the new context documentation, generated from the context schemas, which are now the single source of truth for the context standardisation, at: https://fdc3.finos.org/docs/next/context/ref/Chart
      • Currently only available in the Main/Unreleased section of the swebsite (until we release a 2.2 version):
  • FDC3 for .NET docs
    • Will be merged and available in Main/Unreleased shortly (pending final editors review).
  • FDC3 monorepo #1297
    • Work from a contributor is ongoing that will convert the FDC3 repo into a true mono-repo to solve a number issues and make it easier to publish reference implementations.
    • There was some discussion of the best order of operations (merging in-flight PRs, including FDC3 for the web and rebasing the mono-repo refactor or vice-versa). If possible, getting the mono-repo refactor in first would be a good idea.

• Inconsistent Use of Promises #1294 & Make Listener.unsubscribe() async for consistency #1300

  • @kriswest provided some background on the work in 2.0 to make the API all async (and PrivateChannel/Listener functions having been missed out) and the recent addition of the addEventListener function to the desktop agent.
  • It was proposed to make additive changes to API (make Listener.unsubscribe and PrivateChannel.disconnect() return Promise<void>, deprecate synchronous PrivateChannel event listner functions and add a new async addEventListener function to replace them in the same style used in the DesktopAgent` interface, for consistency
  • The PR also changes the event type enum(s) introduced in Add event listener support to the Desktop Agent API #1207 with string unions as this allows for a better inheritane structure in the event objects and event handler, that is easier to implement in .NET.
  • The PR was reviewed in the meeting and consent sought and received to merge the changes, with one minor changes: replace "USER_CHANNEL_CHANGED" with "userChannelChanged" as the desktop agent event type for consistency with the PrivateChannel event types (e.g. "addContextListener"

• Question: Disposal/Teardown patterns in FDC3 #1263

  • There was some discussion of background to this issue (raised by @Davidhanson90), including how containers (the traditional focus of FDC3) haven't needed any explicit tear-down calls as they tend to create connections on the opening of a window and then clean up when the observe it closing.
  • There was consensus that there is not a clear use case for disconnect() call or similar for conventional FDC3 use.
  • However, there is a clear need in web browsers as Desktop Agents can't as easily observe that a window is closed/has closed. It is to listen for a MessagePort closing, but the event may not fire if a render thread crashes, hence, implementations should periodically check the port is still working.
    • A goodbye message should be added to the Web Connection Protocol to handle tear-down and the client code can call it automatically via onBeforeUnload - however implementors would still be advised to retain instance details for apps as they may reconnect quickly, e.g. after a navigation event.
  • Further, Support for Multiple Application Scopes (Agents) within a single window process #1250 is intended to solve for cases where there may be multiple 'apps' or 'widgets' within a single page, and each needing to ahve a distinct identify in FDC3 so that they can interoperate with each other as well as other applications via FDC3.
    • It is logical to assume that they will come and go, implying the need for a teardown or disconnect API call in that use case. Hence, this should be added to the proposal for Support for Multiple Application Scopes (Agents) within a single window process #1250.
    • @openfin-johans asked us to confirm that there are stated use cases for Support for Multiple Application Scopes (Agents) within a single window process #1250 - @kriswest and @novavi reported that 3 firms had come to the FDC3 for the Web meetings describing their need (and efforts to build out) this use case.
    • There was consensus that it might be difficult to get Support for Multiple Application Scopes (Agents) within a single window process #1250 into FDC3 2.2 due to time constraints - and discussion for producing a 2.3 version afterwards at a faster cadence than previous releases (FDC3's release cadence is not specified).

• Add property to support analytics across apps #1290

  • @kriswest provided some background on the prior discussion of this issue - there is consensus that its an important usecase, but consent was withheld on the specific proposed solution (adding a metadata property to the context data schema) - it's easy (requires no changes to a DA) but not entirely clean (mixes data and metadata).
  • @kriswest went over an alternative proposal based on adding optional metadata arguments to broadcast and raiseIntent functions which then deliver the metadata in the ContextMetadata object - requires more work from DA vendors, but is much cleaner.
  • The meeting agreed to wait for @Davidhanson90 and @julianna-ciq to meet on the topic and discuss the options - the issue will be added to next month's meeting.
    • The additional arguments could be optional as ContextMetadata is currently an optional feature
    • The change is likely to miss FDC3 2.2 and go into the FDC3 2.3 scope.

Action Items

• All encourage review of the fdc3-dtnet 2.1 update:
  • issue: Update to FDC3 2.1 fdc3-dotnet#74
  • PR: Update to 2.1 specification fdc3-dotnet#141
• @finos/fdc3-maintainers Update Async listener and private channel events #1305 to use "userChannelChanged" instead of "USER_CHANNEL_CHANGED", review and merge.
• @kriswest add an explicit goodbye message to the Web Connection Protocol that can be used to teear down the MessagePort and advice in its documentation. @robmoffat to use the goodbye message within an onBeforeUnload handler in the client code to call it automatically.
• @kriswest Update the proposal for Support for Multiple Application Scopes (Agents) within a single window process #1250 to include a tear down function for 'subAgents'.
• @julianna-ciq and @Davidhanson90 to meet and discuss the alternative proposal to resolve Add property to support analytics across apps #1290 posted @kriswest as a comment on the issue, before it is debated at next month's meeting

Rolled over:

• @bingenito create a PR to add the advice about consistent use of pascal case in enums in the API (implementation language and context docs (The Context Interface section after advice on union types).
• @kriswest @hellosmithy PR to be raised for Context Clearing #1197
• @bingenito & @kriswest to complete PR Adding .NET signatures to FDC3 documentation #1108 and submit for review - to include at least a basic version of supported platforms content (to be improved later)

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[novavi]

Derek Novavi / S&P Global

[bingenito]

Brian Ingenito / Morgan Stanley

[openfin-johans]

Johan Sandersson / Here (formerly OpenFin) 🎁

[psmulovics]

Peter Smulovics / Morgan Stanley

[Lecss]

Alex Dumitru / Citi

[kriswest]

Kris West / interop.io 🚀

[robmoffat]

Rob Moffat / FINOS 🚚

[lilla28]

Lilla Orban / Morgan Stanley