Let setting UI support for other program languages

[Zeroto521]

Question

As title.

More can see jjw24/Wox#178.

Discussion

I think just like using JSON-RPC for supporting other program languages.

Why not using some template file for support setting UI.

But at the same time, we need a tool to compile the file and inject in the Flow main program.

To make it just like a C# plugin.

[jjw24]

Interesting indeed. Let me think how we can do this

[ghost]

Maybe take a look on this YouTube tutorial

[Zeroto521]

In my memory, IronPython is an old-time interpreter.
Now it only supports py3.4 and just in an alpha version.
So I wouldn't consider it at present.

[pc223]

I'm not too sure why we need IronPython? 💭 You want plugins have their own UI? Interesting but a bit overkill for now I think 😅

About the settings problem, I think let plugins able to add more options in settings-page is a really cool idea, not sure how to implement tho. I think we can have couple of basic cases: string-config, boolean-config, list-choices-config (combobox)... And we could try to map these with the settings UI and plugins

One case study we can look into is VSCode, I see they have some kind of map from settings.json file to the settings UI

[ghost]

I mean it would be nice if python plugins can have settings UI like a C# plugin can
Image example

[taooceros]

I mean it would be nice if python plugins can have settings UI like a C# plugin can
Image example

Yeah I think so. It would make python plugin be able to do more things.

I think @Zeroto521 's proposal is possible, but we need a complete proposal to implement it.

[taooceros]

Proposal

Basic Property

Plugins need to provide a poco json to indicate what kind of config they want to have.

{
    "property1": "default value",
    "property2": "default value"
}

JSONRPCClass need to parse the value and create a poco class (or dynamic parse) Parse it to a Dictionary, and stored it into a json file.
Plugin will access setting via the json file.

UI Element

Key will create a Label with key name (TextBlock can also be used here)
String, Int, Double will be treated as string and create a textbox
Bool will create a CheckBox

Unfinished

• Support for saving List of value
  • UI control

{
    "list1": ["default value 1", "default value 2"]
}

• Support for saving Dictionary or class
  • UI control

{
    "dic1": {"key": "value" }
}

TODO:

• Dynamic create usercontrol based on poco.
• Parse the json input to a poco

[jjw24]

Haven't thought this through thoroughly but would it be better to use yaml instead of json?

[taooceros]

Haven't thought this through thoroughly but would it be better to use yaml instead of json?

This needs to be json because it is a request response. The config file can be yaml, but why yaml over json?

[Zeroto521]

Maybe we design from UI first?

To know about how many components we could use, then design to correspond data structure and file format.

[taooceros]

I have written a draft using Label, TextBlock or CheckBox

[taooceros]

Simplified a bit. No need to manually type the type, but just let the json parse it.

[taooceros]

It's a one time request when init, so probably handle it with a static template file is also fine.

[taooceros]

[Garulf]

How does Flow handle secrets? Are they stored in the system keychain?

[jjw24]

there is no mechanism in Flow at the moment to encrypt/decrypt or store in system keychain, at the moment it's up to the plugin developer how to handle it, might be worth while adding in. Spotify and Github plugins both handles API token, last time i checked it's just stored as plain text for GitHub plugin locally, not sure about Spotify.

[taooceros]

This is on the way.

[Garulf]

So far looks very easy to implement and will be give a HUGE benefit to users. Fussing with text files is not a great user experience and will hopefully be a thing of the past with this feature.