GadgetBridge and a console screen (as per IDE)

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-04-09 by HughB

Now that we have our own Bangle GadgetBridge I think it would be very useful to have
a console window like the one in the IDE so that you could type commands, runs bits of code and seen the output.

The reason I suggest this is you cant be connected to GadgetBridge and the IDE at the same time. So if you want to see what is going on inside the Bangle when you need to be connected to GadgetBridge you can't.

This would be very useful when looking at GPS issues etc or indeed debugging messages apps etc.

What does everyone think, should I log a feature request ?

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-04-09 by rigrigrig

I think it would be very useful.
Another option would be if GagdetBridge could work as IDE relay, that might be easier to add (as first step ;-), because it wouldn't need a console UI inside the app?

Actually, now I wonder if this even needs support from the app, maybe it could just be added to the app store code?

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Posted at 2023-04-09 by HughB

maybe it could just be added to the app store code?

do you mean the android App ?

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Posted at 2023-04-09 by rigrigrig

I meant we already have the code for the relay, so it shouldn't¹ be too hard to add a button to the App Loader which does the same.
So you could just open the app store in GadgetBridge and press the button to set up a relay.

¹ But nothing is ever easy.

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Posted at 2023-04-12 by @gfwilliams

Yes, this is something that's been on my list of stuff to do for a while. It's possible there is already an issue open for it somewhere?

But yes, it should be possible to just add the code into the App Loader itself, so Gadgetbridge doesn't even need changing. I think rather than trying to pull in a terminal, it would make a lot of sense just to extend the Web IDE relay so you get all the Web IDE features.

However the thing that's holding me back is I'd prefer to redo the IDE relay using Peer.js (WebRTC) as I feel like it'd be a lot neater/safer than using the espruino.com servers, and we could even enable video streaming - which would be really handy if for instance someone wanted to help a friend, and the plan was to add a QR code too so there was no need for code entry.

I have a proof of concept here, and when it's working nicely I'll get it in - and hopefully then integrating it into the App Loader would be pretty easy.

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Posted at 2023-04-12 by HughB

That sounds great.

So would this mean you would be able to open a console when connected to the App loader ?
And therefore as the App Loader is integrated into GadgetBridge you would just then navigate to the console through the App Loader UI.

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Posted at 2023-04-13 by @gfwilliams

Well, the idea would be you'd open the App Loader from Gadgetbridge and then click the Share/Relay button.

Then on another PC you could run the Web IDE as if you were connected directly

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Posted at 2023-04-14 by HughB

Got it, this would be very very for debugging. The hope would be that it would encourage more development as things were simpler and easier to debug.