Briefcase Automation missing features

[emajj]

Shebang on Linux/Mac

The Linux/Mac output script must have a shebang in order to be executable.

We will use /bin/sh since it's the most consistently available option across Linux distributions and Macs.

Proposed implementation:

if (onWindows())
    lines.add("#!/bin/sh");

Define custom export, pull and push confs per form

We should provide the option to set a custom pull, push, and/or export configuration per each form, like in the export tab.

Load available confs

In the exports tab, the user can already set a custom conf. We could give the option to load it into the same form's custom export conf in the automation tab.

Scheduler integration

For this I think we should have the option of either generating a script when the user will be doing the scheduling on a different machine. If the user will be scheduling from the same machine then we can schedule jobs directly from the briefcase UI.

Another thought is to make the machine doing the scheduling communicating remotely with the server where the jobs need to run on. I think we could build an API for that, though I'm not 100% certain how to achieve that yet.

[lognaturel]

That’s a good start, @emajj! I’m sure you have notes about each of these, how you would approach them and some of the challenges that are bound to come up. Would be good to have a couple of paragraphs about each. In particular, what does “Add schebang for linux” mean?

[ggalmazor]

Hi, @emajj!

I've reviewed your issue and changed the language for clarity and conciseness. I hope you don't mind. I'd want this issue to serve as a platform to explore and discuss all the pending stuff.

I already have some questions, and it would be great to have your take on them. We can discuss them and then change the issue when there's an agreement about things.

These are my thoughts and questions:

• In the "Define custom confs per form" section, add more detail and mockups that would describe how that would work on the UI.
• In the "Load available confs" section, add more detail and mockups that would describe how that would work on the UI.
  • It's also not clear how that would work with the pull and push confs.
• In the scheduler section:
  • We can assume that this will be used by users wanting to install the scripts in the same machine they're running Briefcase.
  • I think we should still give the option of getting the script to let the users install it in another machine, but that's not the primary goal if this feature.
  • We need to expand on this section all the information we have about how scheduling works in Windows vs. Linux/Mac, libraries we've detected that solve this problem, strategies we're contemplating to go about this, etc.
  • Specifically, we should answer the question: What happens if the user wants to remove/edit a scheduled script?

[emajj]

've reviewed your issue and changed the language for clarity and conciseness. I hope you don't mind

I don't. Thanks for the edit.

In the "Define custom confs per form" section, add more detail and mockups that would describe how that would work on the UI.

Ok. I will prepare mock ups.

In the "Load available confs" section, add more detail and mockups that would describe how that would work on the UI.

And here too. But the initial implementation I did was working like this out of the box but it was loading the same config for all forms. I think if I can figure out how to define custom config per forms, then this should follow naturally.

We can assume that this will be used by users wanting to install the scripts in the same machine they're running Briefcase

In that case I will proceed with the research on how to integrate the scheduler. Keeping in mind all the questions above.

Thanks