Develop Reference

Unable to get full path of file dropped in browser due to security reasons. What to do?

I'm developing a web-application with Django, which should manage and process a huge amount of user' files in local intranet. As the Django app and user files will host in the same local network, there is no necessity to upload files, it's ok to provide Django with full network path to the file via user's view.
I realised that it's impossible to get full file path from the browser due to security reasons.
There is a lot of files a user will process every day (around 150-200), so it's not ok to ask user to manually copy-paste full file path into the app. Initial design approach supposed user to drag-n-drop files from Windows Explorer to dedicated areas in the browser.
What's my options, community?
rewrite all front-end as Electron app (yikes! Just because of it!) and use Django only as REST API backend;
rewrite ducking everything as desktop app and lose all advantages Django provides (authorization, authentication, ORM, admin panel, gosh -- lots of it);
the third funny option
I feel a little stranded. Need some advice. Thanks!

I have encountered same problem while working on this.
When I think on your options
1- There is no need to re-write whole app
Create an api endpoint on server side
Create a script(program) on client that will push real paths to server
Your files should be accessible over network
Here is the script code that I used:
Tested with python Python 3.7.4 Prints realpath of all the selected files as a list.
source
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog
import pathlib
root = tk.Tk()
root.withdraw()
root.attributes("-topmost", True)
file_path = filedialog.askopenfilenames()
# print(file_path) #debug
files = list(file_path)
print(files)
Then you need to import either a requests and generate a Json request to your server endpoint.Or just call a curl with subprocess.
2- By your definition I assume the intranet network is trusted.So is authentication necessary.And there is a question of How many users will use same file after it is processed in server.If its one then there is no need for a django app.

Well...
I've solved my problem. With much less blood than expected, which I'm happy of. :)
First, I installed Electron and one of minimal boilerplates into a new folder in my project.
In boilerplate there is a file called main.js (or index.js, depends on boilerplate), which defines Electron application window and its contents. Inside is the line which loads content to Electron BrowserWindow object:
mainWindow.loadFile(path.join(__dirname, 'index.html'));
Fortunately, BrowserWindow object does have method loadURL, which can be used to load webpage instead of local html file:
mainWindow.loadURL('http://127.0.0.1:8000');
It means that all pages rendered by Django will be shown in Electron browser, which runs node.js instead of standard browser javascript engine. Thus, this code in Django page template will work perfectly:
<h1 id="holder">DROP FILES HERE</h1>
<p id="dropped"></p>
<script>
const dropZone = document.getElementById('holder');
dropZone.addEventListener('drop', (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
e.stopPropagation();
let filesList = '\n';
for (const f of e.dataTransfer.files) filesList += f.path + '\n';
document.getElementById('dropped').innerHTML = `Full file paths: ${filesList}`;
});
dropZone.addEventListener('dragover', (e) => {
e.preventDefault();
e.stopPropagation();
});
</script>

Serve large static page from React

I am re-building our website as a single page React application, but for simplicity would like to keep the landing page the same. The landing page is a large static HTML file (with some JS for animations, bootstrap, etc). A large amount of imports and animations makes it difficult to migrate the entire page as a react component.
I want to add the website under /public/landing-page.html, with all of the extra CSS/JS/assets in the same location. Is there a way to assign a route to serve this page rather than render a route in the usual React way?
This seems like a common problem for people migrating their sites from JS/HTML to React.

You can serve this landing-page.html and corresponding CSS/JavaScript/Asset files as static resources. That is, make Node.js as plain web server for these files, without any connection to React.
For example, if Express framework is used in Node.js, it is pretty easy to make the configuration:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
...
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'), { 'extensions': ['html', 'js', 'css', 'png'], 'maxAge': '7d' }));
Then, you can open http://<your-website>/landing-page.html, without any React stuff.

If you want to achieve this within the react structure without using the node server, you should try using
<div __dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{__html: yourSiteAsAString }} />
if you want a safer approach, try using sanitize a node module which sanitizes the html before passing it to __dangerouslySetInnerHTML

Load json file into Asset pipeline

So, I'm trying to use Cocos2d-JS to create a simple game embedded into one of my rails view.
The thing is that cocos requires a farly simple project.json file with some config data in it to run correctly, here's the internal code:
if(!txt){
txt = cc.loader._loadTxtSync("project.json");
}
data = JSON.parse(txt);
Nonetheless even though I have this JSON file besides the cocos2d-JS .js file, I get always the same error running the rails server on development which is:
GET http://127.0.0.1:3000/project.json 404 (Not Found)
What have I tried so far and haven't worked:
Change the path on the js file to use a relative one, doesn't work.
Putting the JSON file in an aws bucket and try loading it from there, I get a non-authorized access error.
Renaming the cocos2d.js file to cocos2d.js.erb and lad the json with <%= asset_path 'project.json' %>, this breaks cocos2d itself...
How to bypass in case I can't get an answer:
I would try fixing the aws non authorized access issue, I'm a bit seasoned in Ruby and Rails, but don't fully understand the asset pipeline in order to find an alternative...
So my question is: Is this something related to the asset pipeline? How can I load this .json file into my js?
Thanks a lot!

Fixed!
Just modified the CORS policy on aws to allow access from my web app and everything's done

Basic html engine in Node

I want to write my HTML in HTML. Not some fancy way. The only thing that would be cool is to be able to use some sort of include statement to include header/navigation/footer for each page.
I've looked at pug, ejs, mustache, nunchuck, etc etc. I hate all of these things. I just want to write HTML..
What is a simple node module to do this? And how do I set up the render engine in my main app.js? I am using express

You can just set up your express routes to connect with html pages. Here's a simple example:
var express = require('express');
// Create express app
var app = express();
// Route index page to an index html page
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/path/to/views/index.html');
});
// Create server
app.listen(8080, function(){
console.log('Ready on port 8080...');
});
As a side note, ejs is basically html but with some bonus functionality. You can totally get away with writing only html in ejs pages and then start using the ejs features when you get comfortable with it.

Looks like you want to server only static html files using node not some jsp equivalent dynamically generated html.
Express has support for serving static files and you do not need to define any routes for that!
http://expressjs.com/en/starter/static-files.html
Second thing I understood from your post is you want to include some common html to your html page. One way of doing that is to use a browser/client side java script framework. Take a look at angular.js. It has ng-include. Basically you can include one html file to another using that.

Providing auth for static HTML/JS application with Sails.js

I have a client side application written in plain HTML/JS (Not with Angular.js or other front-end MVC framework). It contains multiple html file. each includes different js library.
I would like to provide basic user auth feature(using sails-generate-auth) to limit the access of this client-side application using Sails.js
But I'm having problem putting those html file into /views
Should I change all *.html in to *.ejs and edit /config/routes.js to route each file? How do I make use of the req.session.authenticated ? Please provide some direction. Thank you.

Your solution written in your question would work. Here is another option:
You can send the file straight from your controller or for universal usage you can create a custom response that will send the html file instead of attempting to render the ejs view. Call it sendHtml(), or modify the current ok.js to know and send your html files
http://sailsjs.org/#!/documentation/concepts/Custom-Responses
Use something like
res.sendfile('/views/' + rest.controller + '/' + res.action + '.html');