How can the electron framework enable communication like an Ajax request? - electron

ipcRenderer.sendSync may block the whole renderer process. ipcRenderer.send need use ipcRenderer.on to listen for the asynchronous return of events.
So is there a way of communicating that data can be returned as a callback directly where it was requested?
It might look something like this: ipcRenderer.sendAsync('eventName', args, callback), Or by other means.
ipcRenderer.on("onMessage", (e, {cbName, data}) => {
switch (cbName) {
case 'foo1':
foo1(data)
break
case 'foo2':
foo2(data)
break
case 'foo3':
foo2(data)
break
// more
default:
break
}
})
ipcRenderer.send("message", { cbName, /* other args */ })

what you need is ipcMain.handle() and ipcRenderer.invoke()
this will return a promise back to renderer.
// Main process
ipcMain.handle('my-invokable-ipc', async (event, ...args) => {
const result = await somePromise(...args)
return result
})
// Renderer process
async () => {
const result = await ipcRenderer.invoke('my-invokable-ipc', arg1, arg2)
// ...
}
For further info
https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/ipc-main#ipcmainhandlechannel-listener

What you're asking for, if I understand it correctly, is to pass a callback from the renderer process to the main process and have the handler in main call into it with the response rather than sending it back.
so rather than doing this:
main.js:
ipcMain.on("message", (e, arg) => {
e.sender.send("onMessage", "response");
});
renderer.js:
ipcRenderer.send("message", 1);
ipcRenderer.on("onMessage", (e, response) => { });
you want to do this:
main.js:
ipcMain.on("message", (e, arg, callback) => {
callback("response");
});
renderer.js:
function callback(response) { }
ipcRenderer.send("message", 1, callback);
Then no, you can't do that because you can't pass functions across processes like this. Even if you .toString() the function and then recreate the function in the main process via new Function(...), you would be executing it in the context of the main process, not the renderer, and presumably you'd want to execute it in the renderer process.
Using e.sender.send(...) is the idiomatic way of sending messages back to the other process, and you shouldn't shy away from it.

Related

Manifest v3 extension: asynchronous event listener does not keep the service worker alive [duplicate]

I am trying to pass messages between content script and the extension
Here is what I have in content-script
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({type: "getUrls"}, function(response) {
console.log(response)
});
And in the background script I have
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.type == "getUrls"){
getUrls(request, sender, sendResponse)
}
});
function getUrls(request, sender, sendResponse){
var resp = sendResponse;
$.ajax({
url: "http://localhost:3000/urls",
method: 'GET',
success: function(d){
resp({urls: d})
}
});
}
Now if I send the response before the ajax call in the getUrls function, the response is sent successfully, but in the success method of the ajax call when I send the response it doesn't send it, when I go into debugging I can see that the port is null inside the code for sendResponse function.
From the documentation for chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener:
This function becomes invalid when the event listener returns, unless you return true from the event listener to indicate you wish to send a response asynchronously (this will keep the message channel open to the other end until sendResponse is called).
So you just need to add return true; after the call to getUrls to indicate that you'll call the response function asynchronously.
The accepted answer is correct, I just wanted to add sample code that simplifies this.
The problem is that the API (in my view) is not well designed because it forces us developers to know if a particular message will be handled async or not. If you handle many different messages this becomes an impossible task because you never know if deep down some function a passed-in sendResponse will be called async or not.
Consider this:
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(function (request, sender, sendResponseParam) {
if (request.method == "method1") {
handleMethod1(sendResponse);
}
How can I know if deep down handleMethod1 the call will be async or not? How can someone that modifies handleMethod1 knows that it will break a caller by introducing something async?
My solution is this:
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(function (request, sender, sendResponseParam) {
var responseStatus = { bCalled: false };
function sendResponse(obj) { //dummy wrapper to deal with exceptions and detect async
try {
sendResponseParam(obj);
} catch (e) {
//error handling
}
responseStatus.bCalled= true;
}
if (request.method == "method1") {
handleMethod1(sendResponse);
}
else if (request.method == "method2") {
handleMethod2(sendResponse);
}
...
if (!responseStatus.bCalled) { //if its set, the call wasn't async, else it is.
return true;
}
});
This automatically handles the return value, regardless of how you choose to handle the message. Note that this assumes that you never forget to call the response function. Also note that chromium could have automated this for us, I don't see why they didn't.
You can use my library https://github.com/lawlietmester/webextension to make this work in both Chrome and FF with Firefox way without callbacks.
Your code will look like:
Browser.runtime.onMessage.addListener( request => new Promise( resolve => {
if( !request || typeof request !== 'object' || request.type !== "getUrls" ) return;
$.ajax({
'url': "http://localhost:3000/urls",
'method': 'GET'
}).then( urls => { resolve({ urls }); });
}) );

How to call asynchronous function before event.respondWith in Service Worker?

its not work.
self.addEventListener('fetch', async (event) => {
const url = await localforage.getItem('url'); // url change if page changed
if(event.request.url === url){
event.respondWith(handleFetch(event));
}
});
const handleFetch = async (event) => {
....
}
if i move url to inside event.responseWith. its work, but do every request, but i need only match url to fetch in service worker if not match then do nothing.
self.addEventListener('fetch', async (event) => {
event.respondWith(handleFetch(event));
});
const handleFetch = async (event) => {
const url = await localforage.getItem('url'); // url change if page changed
if(event.request.url === url){
....
}
}
This is intentional. Your decision as to whether or not to call event.respondWith() needs to be done synchronously, within the top-level execution of your fetch handler.
This allows you to do things like examine the request URL and headers synchronously, but it does preclude you from performing asynchronous lookups against things like IndexedDB.
If you can't transition your criteria to use something synchronous, then your best option is to call event.respondWith() unconditionally, and when the criteria is not met, use return fetch(event.request) to come as close as you could to the "default" behavior you'd get if you didn't respond at all. (That's basically what you're doing in the second example.)

Service Workers and IndexedDB

In a simple JavaScript Service Worker I want to intercept a request and read a value from IndexedDB before the event.respondWith
But the asynchronous nature of IndexDB does not seem to allow this.
Since the indexedDB.open is asynchronous, we have to await it which is fine. However, the callback (onsuccess) happens later so the function will exit immediately after the await on open.
The only way I have found to get it to work reliably is to add:
var wait = ms => new Promise((r, j) => setTimeout(r, ms));
await wait(50)
at the end of my readDB function to force a wait until the onsuccess has completed.
This is completely stupid!
And please don't even try to tell me about promises. They DO NOT WORK in this circumstance.
Does anyone know how we are supposed to use this properly?
Sample readDB is here (all error checking removed for clarity). Note, we cannot use await inside the onsuccess so the two inner IndexedDB calls are not awaited!
async function readDB(dbname, storeName, id) {
var result;
var request = await indexedDB.open(dbname, 1); //indexedDB.open is an asynchronous function
request.onsuccess = function (event) {
let db = event.target.result;
var transaction = db.transaction([storeName], "readonly"); //This is also asynchronous and needs await
var store = transaction.objectStore(storeName);
var objectStoreRequest = store.get(id); //This is also asynchronous and needs await
objectStoreRequest.onsuccess = function (event) {
result = objectStoreRequest.result;
};
};
//Without this wait, this function returns BEFORE the onsuccess has completed
console.warn('ABOUT TO WAIT');
var wait = ms => new Promise((r, j) => setTimeout(r, ms));
await wait(50)
console.warn('WAIT DONE');
return result;
}
And please don't even try to tell me about promises. They DO NOT WORK in this circumstance.
...
...
...
I mean, they do, though. Assuming that you're okay putting the promise-based IndexedDB lookups inside of event.respondWith() rather than before event.respondWith(), at least. (If you're trying to do this before calling event.respondWith(), to figure out whether or not you want to respond at all, you're correct in that it's not possible, since the decision as to whether or not to call event.respondWith() needs to be made synchronously.)
It's not easy to wrap IndexedDB in a promise-based interface, but https://github.com/jakearchibald/idb has already done the hard work, and it works quite well inside of a service worker. Moreover, https://github.com/jakearchibald/idb-keyval makes it even easier to do this sort of thing if you just need a single key/value pair, rather than the full IndexedDB feature set.
Here's an example, assuming you're okay with idb-keyval:
importScripts('https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/idb-keyval#3/dist/idb-keyval-iife.min.js');
// Call idbKeyval.set() to save data to your datastore in the `install` handler,
// in the context of your `window`, etc.
self.addEventListener('fetch', event => {
// Optionally, add in some *synchronous* criteria here that examines event.request
// and only calls event.respondWith() if this `fetch` handler can respond.
event.respondWith(async function() {
const id = someLogicToCalculateAnId();
const value = await idbKeyval.get(id);
// You now can use `value` however you want.
const response = generateResponseFromValue(value);
return response;
}())
});

Pass custom data to service worker sync?

I need to make a POST request and send some data. I'm using the service worker sync to handle offline situation.
But is there a way to pass the POST data to the service worker, so it makes the same request again?
Cause apparently the current solution is to store requests in some client side storage and after client gets connection - get the requests info from the storage and then send them.
Any more elegant way?
PS: I thought about just making the service worker send message to the application code so it does the request again ... but unfortunately it doesn't know the exact client that registered the service worker :(
You can use fetch-sync
or i use postmessage to fix this problem, which i agree that indexedDB looks trouble.
first of all, i send the message from html.
// send message to serviceWorker
function sync (url, options) {
navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage({type: 'sync', url, options})
}
i got this message in serviceworker, and then i store it.
const syncStore = {}
self.addEventListener('message', event => {
if(event.data.type === 'sync') {
// get a unique id to save the data
const id = uuid()
syncStore[id] = event.data
// register a sync and pass the id as tag for it to get the data
self.registration.sync.register(id)
}
console.log(event.data)
})
in the sync event, i got the data and fetch
self.addEventListener('sync', event => {
// get the data by tag
const {url, options} = syncStore[event.tag]
event.waitUntil(fetch(url, options))
})
it works well in my test, what's more you can delete the memory store after the fetch
what's more, you may want to send back the result to the page. i will do this in the same way by postmessage.
as now i have to communicate between each other, i will change the fucnction sync into this way
// use messagechannel to communicate
sendMessageToSw (msg) {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
// Create a Message Channel
const msg_chan = new MessageChannel()
// Handler for recieving message reply from service worker
msg_chan.port1.onmessage = event => {
if(event.data.error) {
reject(event.data.error)
} else {
resolve(event.data)
}
}
navigator.serviceWorker.controller.postMessage(msg, [msg_chan.port2])
})
}
// send message to serviceWorker
// you can see that i add a parse argument
// this is use to tell the serviceworker how to parse our data
function sync (url, options, parse) {
return sendMessageToSw({type: 'sync', url, options, parse})
}
i also have to change the message event, so that i can pass the port to sync event
self.addEventListener('message', event => {
if(isObject(event.data)) {
if(event.data.type === 'sync') {
// in this way, you can decide your tag
const id = event.data.id || uuid()
// pass the port into the memory stor
syncStore[id] = Object.assign({port: event.ports[0]}, event.data)
self.registration.sync.register(id)
}
}
})
up to now, we can handle the sync event
self.addEventListener('sync', event => {
const {url, options, port, parse} = syncStore[event.tag] || {}
// delete the memory
delete syncStore[event.tag]
event.waitUntil(fetch(url, options)
.then(response => {
// clone response because it will fail to parse if it parse again
const copy = response.clone()
if(response.ok) {
// parse it as you like
copy[parse]()
.then(data => {
// when success postmessage back
port.postMessage(data)
})
} else {
port.postMessage({error: response.status})
}
})
.catch(error => {
port.postMessage({error: error.message})
})
)
})
At the end. you cannot use postmessage to send response directly.Because it's illegal.So you need to parse it, such as text, json, blob, etc. i think that's enough.
As you have mention that, you may want to open the window.
i advice that you can use serviceworker to send a notification.
self.addEventListener('push', function (event) {
const title = 'i am a fucking test'
const options = {
body: 'Yay it works.',
}
event.waitUntil(self.registration.showNotification(title, options))
})
self.addEventListener('notificationclick', function (event) {
event.notification.close()
event.waitUntil(
clients.openWindow('https://yoursite.com')
)
})
when the client click we can open the window.
To comunicate with the serviceworker I use a trick:
in the fetch eventlistener I put this:
self.addEventListener('fetch', event => {
if (event.request.url.includes("sw_messages.js")) {
var zib = "some data";
event.respondWith(new Response("window.msg=" + JSON.stringify(zib) + ";", {
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/javascript'
}
}));
}
return;
});
then, in the main html I just add:
<script src="sw_messages.js"></script>
as the page loads, global variable msg will contain (in this example) "some data".

Wait for future to complete

I use my postgres database query to determine my next action. And I need to wait for the results before I can execute the next line of code. Now my conn.query returns a Future but I can't manage to get it async when I place my code in another function.
main() {
// get the database connection string from the settings.ini in the project root folder
db = getdb();
geturl().then((String url) => print(url));
}
Future geturl() {
connect(db).then((conn) {
conn.query("select trim(url) from crawler.crawls where content IS NULL").toList()
.then((result) { return result[0].toString(); })
.catchError((err) => print('Query error: $err'))
.whenComplete(() {
conn.close();
});
});
}
I just want geturl() to wait for the returned value but whatever I do; it fires immediately. Can anyone point me a of a piece of the docs that explains what I am missing here?
You're not actually returning a Future in geturl currently. You have to actually return the Futures that you use:
Future geturl() {
return connect(db).then((conn) {
return conn.query("select trim(url) from crawler.crawls where content IS NULL").toList()
.then((result) { return result[0].toString(); })
.catchError((err) => print('Query error: $err'))
.whenComplete(() {
conn.close();
});
});
}
To elaborate on John's comment, here's how you'd implement this using async/await. (The async/await feature was added in Dart 1.9)
main() async {
try {
var url = await getUrl();
print(url);
} on Exception catch (ex) {
print('Query error: $ex');
}
}
Future getUrl() async {
// get the database connection string from the settings.ini in the project root folder
db = getdb();
var conn = await connect(db);
try {
var sql = "select trim(url) from crawler.crawls where content IS NULL";
var result = await conn.query(sql).toList();
return result[0].toString();
} finally {
conn.close();
}
}
I prefer, in scenarios with multiple-chained futures (hopefully soon a thing of the past once await comes out), to use a Completer. It works like this:
Future geturl() {
final c = new Completer(); // declare a completer.
connect(db).then((conn) {
conn.query("select trim(url) from crawler.crawls where content IS NULL").toList()
.then((result) {
c.complete(result[0].toString()); // use the completer to return the result instead
})
.catchError((err) => print('Query error: $err'))
.whenComplete(() {
conn.close();
});
});
return c.future; // return the future to the completer instead
}
To answer your 'where are the docs' question: https://www.dartlang.org/docs/tutorials/futures/
You said that you were trying to get your geturl() function to 'wait for the returned value'. A function that returns a Future (as in the example in the previous answer) will execute and return immediately, it will not wait. In fact that is precisely what Futures are for, to avoid code doing nothing or 'blocking' while waiting for data to arrive or an external process to finish.
The key thing to understand is that when the interpreter gets to a call to then() or 'catchError()' on a Future, it does not execute the code inside, it puts it aside to be executed later when the future 'completes', and then just keeps right on executing any following code.
In other words, when using Futures in Dart you are setting up chunks of code that will be executed non-linearly.

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