readme: record that libsecret-1-dev is required now

[flutter/pve_flutter_frontend.git] / README.md

# pve_flutter_frontend

Frontend for Proxmox Virtual Environment

# Setup How-To

## Get Flutter

See:
https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install/linux#install-flutter-manually

Make `flutter doctor` as happy as possible. Note you may need to tell it where
chromium is located, e.g., with `export CHROME_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/chromium`

## Get Path-Dependencies

Most dependencies can be served from pub.dev, but the frontend also depends on
to local path dependencies maintained by Proxmox.

So, in the parent folder clone both, the API client library (pure dart package)
and the login manager, serving as a base for Proxmox api2 projects.

 cd ..
 git clone git://git.proxmox.com/git/flutter/proxmox_dart_api_client.git
 cd proxmox_dart_api_client
 flutter pub get
 flutter packages pub run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs


 cd ..
 git clone git://git.proxmox.com/git/flutter/proxmox_login_manager.git
 cd proxmox_login_manager
 flutter pub get
 flutter packages pub run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs

Now you have made the local dependencies and their dependencies available, and
built the generated (data) model code for each.

# Run the App

## Linux native

Due to the biometric secret integration you also need libsecret-1:

 apt install libsecret-1-dev

With the dependencies setup you should cd back into this directory
(pve_flutter_frontend repository root) and also generate the model code once:

 flutter packages pub run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs

Note: the `--delete-conflicting-outputs` option is normally not required, but
can come in handy during development trial/error coding.

To actually run it you can do:

 flutter run -d linux

## Build errors

If there's an error during build use the verbose `-v` flag, to make flutter
tell you what's actually going on. Quick remedies are then often rebuilding the
models, build from clean state, upgrade or downgrade flutter to the last known
working version - as we use latest master we sometimes run actually into bugs.
Or if you made code changes resulting in an error, well duh, fix those.

## Web build infos

You'll need some sort workaround for CORS in order to serve the flutter
frontend from your local dev machine, which will enable some convenient
features, like hot reload, automatic builds on changes...

This is required as CORS boundaries are any change in <scheme><addr><port>
tuples, and chrome will forbid even cross site requests to localhost on a
different port.

### Disable CORS in chrome/ium


Create a small shell script, lets name it `chrome-no-cors.sh`, with the
following content:

    #!/bin/sh
    mkdir -p /tmp/chrome || true
    /usr/bin/chromium --disable-features=CrossOriginOpenerPolicy,CrossOriginEmbedderPolicy --disable-web-security --user-data-dir="/tmp/chrome" $*

Then `chmod +x chrome-no-cors.sh` it and adapt the CHROME_EXECUTABLE env
variable:

     export CHROME_EXECUTABLE="$(realpath chrome-no-cors.sh)"

Now you can start the web based build normally:

$ flutter run -d chrome --web-port=35000


NOTE: without setting a fixed port flutter uses a random one, as chrome binds
 certificate expections and local browser storage to a (protocol, host, port)
 tuple, this means that we'd lose all saved settings etc. every time else

### Use reverse proxy to allow connections to PVE and the App over the same port

Launch App in Chrome:
$ flutter run -d chrome --web-port 42000

nginx snippets:

location / {

	if ( $query_string ~ "console" ) {
		proxy_pass https://<clusterip>:8006;
	}
	proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:42000;
	proxy_read_timeout 24h;
	proxy_http_version 1.1;
	proxy_set_header Connection "";
	proxy_buffering off;

}

location /xterm {
	proxy_set_header Host $host;
	proxy_set_header Cookie $http_cookie;
	proxy_pass https://<clusterip>:8006;
}

location /api2 {
	proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
	proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
	proxy_set_header Host $host;
	proxy_set_header Cookie $http_cookie;
	proxy_pass https://<clusterip>:8006;
}

# Misc.

To upgrade the proxmox_api_client dependency execute:
$ flutter packages upgrade

To build the model classes use:
$ flutter packages pub run build_runner build

If you want to login without typing your password for your
Test-Cluster, add this to the main function:

var apiClient = await proxclient.authenticate("root@pam", "yourpassword");

## Android vector drawables

Android does support vector drawables, but not SVGs directly. They need to be
converted to the Android specific subset of SVG and are stored as xml files.

One way to do that is to use the Asset Studio which is part of Android Studio.
In your (dummy) project, right click in the tree view on
app -> New -> Vector Asset.

There are other options, but they have some caveats themselves.

 * a web service which is subscription based https://svg2vector.com/
 * a JS based CLI tool, but it is npm based... https://github.com/Ashung/svg2vectordrawable

## Android splash screen logo

Will be masked, see figure 2 in https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/splash-screen
The drawable therefore needs to account for that by being quite a bit bigger.
The `assets/images/android_launch_background_template.svg` file is useful to
size the logo / icon accordingly.

## Screenshots Android
adb shell settings put global sysui_demo_allowed 1

## Build tooling upgrades

In general, updates should be done in the order of:

1. Android Studio
2. Flutter
3. Plugins

and then select a gradle and android gradle plugin version which are compatible
with each other and the other parts.

To do this correctly, it's necessary to check the respective release notes
and compatibility tables/matrices.

### Upgrade Flutter

to upgrade flutter itself, just run

 flutter upgrade

check https://docs.flutter.dev/release/release-notes for breaking changes
and migration information

### Upgrade Android Studio

Depends on the method you installed, on Linux with tarballs, normally
the new version is downloaded/extracted again, and it will automatically
detect & migrate old settings and configuration files on first start.

The Android Studio version determines which Gradle/AGP version you can use.
Check the respective release notes for Gradle/AGP versions:
https://developer.android.com/studio/releases

### Gradle/Android Gradle Plugin (AGP)

Compatibility depends on the Android Studio, Flutter and plugins.
Can be changed in Android Studio under
File -> Project Structure -> Project

When selected, Android Studio will automatically download/build them, and
change the entries in the android/build.gradle file.

See https://developer.android.com/build/releases/gradle-plugin for
AGP/Gradle compatibility.

### Upgrade Kotlin

Compatibility depends on Flutter plugins and Gradle, check
https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/compatibility.html

To change the used kotlin version, edit it in the android/build.gradle file
manually.