Refactor out Nodejs related code so it can run in browser

[linonetwo]

See https://stackblitz.com/, it's possible to run a dev server and an editor in the browser's service worker.

I think it's possible to build an online ReLaXed editor if all nodejs related code is refactored out.

[Zulko]

but will it be able to generate PDFs ?

[linonetwo]

I guess iFrame will work.

iframe.focus();
iframe.contentWindow.print();

https://plungjan.name/SO/testprintiframe.html

This requires the user to click print as PDF too...

[linonetwo]

Another way:

1. open another tab that display generated HTML without editor(Just likes what stackblitz can do)
2. run window.print();
3. let user click print as PDF

[linonetwo]

Maybe one day, author of a paper only need to send a link to his editor.

[Zulko]

Do you know overleaf ? Its basically that, but for latex

[linonetwo]

It will be different if we are using web technology.
Overleaf may be running their own server, but with ReLaXed, it can be serverless.

Deliver page via ipfs and ipfs-browser-gateway. Even the storage can use ipfs.

[Zulko]

Definitely something I want to explore, but it would be quite a different project, and at the moment I dont like that the user would need to go through the print-page interface, possibly redefining paper size etc. everytime. It would also be some work to let users manage file and assets in their browser. Other drawbacks would be that you couldnt edit an image file in gimp/inkscape, and see real-time changes in your PDF.

But I agree that it would be orders of magnitude more accessible than the current solution.

[DanielRuf]

I think it should be still standalone and available as Node.js solution with headless Chrome (puppeteer) in the background.

Personally I see not much sense in migrating the codebase and let this run in all browsers.
IF you start supporting one you have to support them all probably.

[Zulko]

One good aspect would be user conversion, since you could get started on an example in seconds, nothing to install. You could also make a custom UI with relaxed-specific features. But yeah, huge project.

[DanielRuf]

One good aspect would be user conversion, since you could get started on an example in seconds, nothing to install. You could also make a custom UI with relaxed-specific features. But yeah, huge project.

Could be easily done with React which can run Node.js code in the background and consume Node.js modules.

So basically we have a feature request for a different implementation (which needs proper planning and evaulation of possible solutions).

[Zulko]

...with the problem that the main feature (automatic PDF generation with custom margins, footers, headers, etc.) is certainly not doable from a browser.

[linonetwo]

Let me close this till there are out-of-box solutions to manage folders of assets in service worker(like stackblitz-core), html-to-pdf generator (maybe pdfjs but doc said it's deprecated) and assert editors (for images).