Add an option to the add-on store, allowing users to customize the mirror URL of metadata

[cary-rowen]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

In China, due to the government firewall or some other reason, NVDA users cannot use the add-on store, get metadata, and cannot download add-ons.
I don't know of any other potential users in regions that are affected by this.

Describe the solution you'd like

Add an option in NVDA that allows users to set the metadata mirror URL of the add-on store, and the Chinese team can maintain this mirror. Just like it currently does for the add-on updater.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Use Monkey Patch for getAddonStoreURL in source/addonStore/network.py.

Additional context

None

[nvdaes]

@cary-rowen , in case this takes some time, since they are add-ons not added to the addons.nvda-project.org website, as you may know, websites have been created to fetch/present add-ons available in the store.
I created a webpage for this when I was requested to make preliminary tests. My webpage has a form at the bottom (you can move there with d since this is a landmark), and there you can upload a downloaded add-on and check the sha256 to ensure that this is not modified. I understand that this is not ideal, but it maybe useful as an alternative. API version of presented add-ons is latest.

https://nvdaes.github.io/nvdastore

[cary-rowen]

Thanks @nvdaes

I can access all services of NVAccess and Github with no problem using VPN.
Also, I can also test the latest alpha version.
Just from the perspective of the Chinese community, I hope to have such a feature to solve the problems faced by Chinese users.

[seanbudd]

Hi @cary-rowen - are you certain of this?

The following tool seems to suggest that nvaccess.org can be accessed just fine from China:
https://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=nvaccess.org

Other similar tools have confirmed this as well.

[wmhn1872265132]

Whether you can successfully access nvaccess.org and github is uncertain, and even if you can access related websites, the access speed is not very satisfactory. If you need to download a large amount of data, it will consume a lot of time

[cary-rowen]

Hi @seanbudd
Not all carrier networks can access NVAccess or download files from Github. The most serious problem may be users using China Mobile.
Worst of all is the inability to download files from github, manifested as the add-on being in a "downloading" state for a long time.
This is a very common phenomenon, and most of the time, NVDA's update check cannot be used in China.
In order to solve this problem, we specially created a mirror (nvaccess.mirror.nvdadr.com) of NVAccess. I once sent an email to info@nvaccess.org to explain this.

The following add-on apply this mirror source:
https://github.com/nvdacn/NVDAUpdateMirror

[seanbudd]

If NVDA users in China already have to use an add-on to use a mirror for update check, wouldn't adding a general mirror for nvaccess.org be more appropriate than just for the add-on store?

It's difficult to say whether supporting mirrors is in scope of NVDA, or should be performed by add-ons only.

[cary-rowen]

If NVDA users in China already have to use an add-on to use a mirror for update check, wouldn't adding a general mirror for nvaccess.org be more appropriate than just for the add-on store?

Yes, this is the ideal solution.

Rather than asking users to go to a specific site to download a separate mirror add-on, it would be better if there was an option to fill in the mirror URL in NVDA's advanced settings, or somewhere more appropriate.

[XLTechie]

It's difficult to say whether supporting mirrors is in scope of NVDA, or should be performed by add-ons only.

While I have no comment on that, I will say that allowing the metadata URL to be easily changed by an add-on without monkeypatching, could make life easier for add-on maintainers. Both in these situations, where China and Iran, to give two examples who have been known to block all kinds of things in the past, might need add-ons to patch the URL; and for alternative add-on catalogs. I would prefer there weren't alternative add-on catalogs, but we know that there are, for example several with language specific add-ons only in them. Allowing a catalog specific add-on to easily patch the URL from which data is fetched, could open certain options. Either an extensionPoint Filter, or a globally available setter for the URL, would solve this with minimal maintenance requirements on the NV Access side..

[cary-rowen]

Either an extensionPoint Filter, or a globally available setter for the URL,
would solve this with minimal maintenance requirements on the NV Access side..

This is also nice and will be friendlier for add-on maintainers too.

[nvdaes]

Imo, seems reasonable to allow URLS mirroring the whole NV Access data available for users, not just the store, to make easier NVDa updates. This is absolutely needed for user of certain countries. In the other hand, I don"t thing that the fact that different catalogs for add-ons which may not be needed, given the fact that sending add-ons to the store can be done easily, I don"t thing that this should be prioritized at all. This maybe even harmful for gattering stats from NV Access, and may have the effect that catalogs are created to promote certain servers without considering the efforz made for the store. But please don"t think that I"m suggesting that providing a way for users that cannot access data ue to restrictions in countries shouldn"t be prioritized. My concern is about people who may create their own catalogs for their own prestige or benefit, at least hypotetically. This cannot be avoided, but certain policies maybe provided, or at least recommendations to use the NV Access catalog when possible.

[seanbudd]

We can improve the API for this in the meantime, before considering including it in NVDA.