How to open an HTML project on the iPad - javascript

I have an HTML project (CSS/JS/jQuery) that I'd like to test on an iPad (in Safari). From what I've read, iOS browsers don't support the file:///path/to/project protocol, and even if it did, I don't believe that you'd be able to navigate the file system to where your project is located.
Please correct me on any of this information if I'm wrong, I'm an Android guy so much of this is new to me. Nonetheless, I tried to use an app called Fileapp to solve my problem. I was able to access and load my project, but it was within Fileapp's native browser, and not Safari (unless it actually WAS Safari and it was just masked).
Does anybody know of a solution to my problem (preferably free)?

2016 UPDATE:
There are several services which now make this easy. If you don't have your own web server check out one of these free services which make updating a live webpage from your PC easy:
Heroku
Git Pages
Both of these services require using git, learn it, you won't regret it.
Days of FTPing or using Dropbox to serve html to an iPad are long gone.
If you need to be able to do this while not connected to the internet check out this article on using local IP tunneling. This would essentially open up the localhost on your PC to be viewed by anyone on a wifi network, regardless of if the wifi was actually connected to the Internet.
http://wesbos.com/localhost-mobile-device-testing/
I prefer Heroku as I am more likely to be switching between locations and PC's than I am to be on a wifi network without an Internet connection.
OLD ANSWER 2012
Get a Dropbox account and put the project in your public folder.
Right click to get the public link and then browse to that location on your iPad.
When I get link from the iPad app it doesn't work it just shows the raw html with a URL structure like so
dropbox.com/s/...
When I go to the website and copy public link (only available if the file is in PUBLIC FOLDER) I get the link that actually works.

Apache probably isn't the most convenient webserver to use for this kind of ad-hoc serving of a local project. Instead, if you're on Mac or on a Linux distribution that has Python installed (which is most of them), you can launch a webserver to serve your current working directory at the terminal with a one-liner:
python -m SimpleHTTPServer
By default it will serve on port 8000; you can specify another port by passing it as a final argument to the command.
To connect to this server from another device, like your iPad or phone, first of all you'll need to make sure your phone is connected to the same local network as your Mac or Linux PC. Then, on the computer, run
ifconfig
and look through the output for your local IP address, which will be labelled as inet addr in the output and listed under one of the connections other than "Local Loopback". On my current PC, I see inet addr:192.168.0.3 listed under the wlan0 connection.
Now, on your phone, open your browser of choice and navigate to the IP address you got from ifconfig on whatever port SimpleHTTPServer is serving on. For example, http://192.168.0.3:8000. You'll be presented with a directory listing corresponding to the directory in which you launched the server, and from there you can view whatever files you're interested in.

The answer to your question is that even with iPadOS the iPad is not a replacement for a Windows, Linux, or Mac. Still too many “can’t get there from here” cases.

One solution to the problem, as pointed out by minitech in the comments of the original questions, was to set up an apache server on my local network and connect directly to it. This worked exactly as I needed it to.

Related

Is there an easy reliable way to transfer a file over local network using Electron / Node.js / terminal?

Are there any built-in methods in Electron / Node.js allowing to transfer a file over local network to another device?
I want to be able to send files locally from one computer to another (through an Electron app), but I also want it to be able to send files to smartphones.
How do I do it? Is it possible to just create a temp local server and download the file from another device by opening the URL (e.g. 192.168.0.x:x/file.txt)?
I tried using https://www.npmjs.com/package/quick-transfer which does exactly that, but for some reason opening the link on another device doesn't do anything.
As painful as it is for me to suggest... I'd recommend WebRTC for this, for these reasons:
It will make a local connection, when possible.
It will work over the internet as well, if required.
You can work around any firewall difficulties with TURN.
You will have compatibility with browsers.
You won't be opening up some server to a file that anyone on the network can get... transmission occurs over a secured connection. (This doesn't mean you can ignore other security aspects in your application however!)
Sample code: https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/datachannel/filetransfer/
Commentary: It's amusing to me that in 2018, we still haven't solved the problem of sending a file from point A to point B. Network Neighborhood in Windows was the golden age, and now it's all screwed up with this newfangled cloud crap. :-) Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/949/

Embedded Devices - Javascript Debugging

I work on embedded devices but am not able to install any software on them (e.g. programs like gdbserver are out). I need to monitor javascript events on those browsers. For example, if we run a web app on the EWB, the device it's on might have a keyboard pop-up. I need a way to see what triggers this event.
I am thinking along the lines of perhaps embedding something into the HTML or javascript that automatically reports any events back to a workstation somewhere.(I already have logs, but they are not live and it's difficult to pinpoint what happens - even beartailing them... wish I could have something like Firebug, but since it's embedded I can't)
Has anyone seen anything along those lines?
To get a debug connection to a web app or page running on a remote device:
Install vorlon using npm
Download ngrok
Start the vorlon server, the server port will probably be localhost:1337 and the following steps assume this
From a terminal/command prompt run ngrok with ngrok http 1337 and it should report an ip address for the other end of the tunnel, something like def01234.ngrok.io available via http and https.
Instead of the local script tag which vorlon suggests, use the remote ngrok address, e.g. <script src="https://def01234.ngrok.io/vorlon.js"></script>. ngrok exposes both http and https - as this is over the public internet I would strongly recommend using a secure connection.
Log onto the vorlon server on your local machine.
If the above test works you are going to want to do two more things:
Get an account at ngrok (or an alternative secure tunnel service) to get a fixed address.
Configure vorlon authentification according to the instructions on this page. By default it is insecure so ANYBODY with the exposed ngrok address could log onto the dashboard and mess with your embedded devices.

Windows AD single sign on using javascript and node

I am in the process of implementing a single page app based on Angular and Node.js, running on a Windows Server within a corporate Windows Active directory domain environment. I know that it is possible to authenticate via AD (by passing a username and password) with the assistance of node packages such as "passport-ldapauth" and "node-activedirectory".
My question is: what would be the most feasible/straight-forward way of implementing single sign-on functionality, so that a user that had already authenticated to Active Directory on the PC / domain would not have to enter their AD username/password again?
I have come across Auth0 packages which are able to do this, but I understand they required an externally hosted cloud service? (which is not an option for me).
Thanks very much in advance.
Update: I have been investigating Kerberos as this could be a solution, however there does not seem to be any mature NPM packages out there for node and Kerberos ?
Update 2: I have found a package called Node-SSPI that looks very promising. I have not had a chance to try it out on windows domain (hopefully will tomorrow) but it was able to verify the user logged on to my local machine.
Thanks
Since 2020, it can also be done with node-expose-sspi. This module let you deal with the Microsoft SSPI API which was exposed to Node.
SSO can be done with both Kerberos and NTLM. It has been tested and is in production as intranet ERP.
Note: I am the author of node-expose-sspi.
As the author noted in their update, this can be done with Node-SSPI. I verified that it also works on a windows domain.

How to build & deploy a Samsung SmartTV app without the IDE (e.g: on Linux)

Problem:
I'd like to try building a proof-of-concept app using the Samsung SmartTV SDK 2.5 (I have a 2011 model TV - UA55D8000).
Unfortunaltely, the SDK comes in two varieties that only seem to work on Microsoft Windows. It's weird because there's no reason it should be the case: the televisions themselves run Linux and applications are written in JavaScript.
This presents two problems:
As I don't have Microsoft Windows at home, I can't use the build environment (nor the TV emulator) that come with the SDK. (The SDK files themselves are just JavaScript)
Even if I had access to Windows, it's very hard to automate building & testing of the Apps without access to traditional build tools (e.g: Make, Ant, Autotools, etc)
How can I build Samsung Smart TV Applications on Linux? (i.e: without using the Windows-based build tools that come with the SDK)
What I've figured out so far:
From what I can gather, a JavaScript-mode application is simply zip file containing an XML config file, one or more JavaScript files (including supplied JavaScript interface libraries for platform SDK functions), and any required assets (HTML, images, etc).
Also, from what I gather, deployment involves placing the zip file and an XML manifest file on a web-server network accessible to the TV, logging in as 'develop' on the TV and 'syncing' the application to the installed applications on the TV.
Could someone point me to a source for the full deployment requirements & app bundle requirements? Or even just a working sample?
I've had a reasonable amount of success setting up a development environment on my Ubuntu machine and I'd like to share my methods here for anyone looking to do the same. This answer is intended to be platform independent, so the same advice should work on any fully fledged operating system.
Introduction
First off, the question's assumptions regarding app structure are correct. A JavaScript application consists of the following items:
config.xml, a simple configuration file defining various settings and deployment information. See Writing the config.xml File on the official developer site.
widget.info, a very small file with a few lines used to define the opacity of the application's body. This may not be required for full-screen applications.
index.html, the main HTML file for your application.
Images, sounds and other resources.
You can write these files using your favourite editor. I'm happily using vim with linting plugins for my JS and CSS.
Testing
As of version 4.0 of the SDK, a Linux version of the emulator is now available. This allows you to test your apps as they would appear on 2011-2013 TVs. For older TVs, you can run SDK 1.5's emulator in Wine, but emulators belonging to SDK 2.0 and newer will not run.
It is possible to run the emulators in a Windows virtual machine, and, with a little bit of trickery, you can make the emulators use your own application folder to look for apps. This involves sharing your development folders with your virtual machine, then creating a symbolic link to those folders, replacing the "apps" folder inside the SDK's installation directory. A quick overview of this process is available in an article titled, Your Windows IDE sucks? Replace it with Your Favorite Editor on the Mac!
Deployment
Samsung Smart TVs have a built-in developer account that allows you to send an application over from your computer for live testing on the television itself. You enter the IP address of your deployment server and the TV will look for a file called widgetlist.xml on that server. An example of the format is as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rsp stat="ok">
<list>
<widget id="MyTVApp">
<title>MyTVApp</title>
<compression size="3383543" type="zip"/>
<description>A basic application for Samsung TVs</description>
<download>http://192.168.1.83/Widget/MyTVApp_0.1_America_20120709.zip</download>
</widget>
</list>
</rsp>
After that, it will download each app listed using the URL in the <download> tag. All you have to do is zip up the files, modify the widgetlist.xml accordingly and make sure both files are hosted in a web server running on your machine. You can use Apache, lighttpd or anything. I have a small node.js/connect app that will build the widgetlist.xml dynamically based on the zip files I have in a directory labelled deploy.
So there you have it. Development of Samsung Smart TV apps is not impossible without Windows. In fact, there's quite a few options available. Hooray!
They have now released Smart TV SDK 4.0 which includes support for Linux & Mac OS X: http://www.samsungdforum.com/SamsungDForum/NewsView?newsID=27
"In addition to the Eclipse-based App Editor, a new Linux-based Emulator has been released.
This Emulator executes in an Ubuntu virtual machine that is run in the Virtual Box virtualization tool."
■ Features for 2013 Platform on Linux (First Release)
Apps Framework
App Engine / WebKit
UniPlayer
SEF (Service Extension Framework)
You need to register to Samsung D forum and then you can download the SDK from https://www.samsungdforum.com/Devtools/SdkDownload
One tip that I have not seen mentioned in any of the answers, is that the TV will attempt to open a socket connection on port 45634 of the machine where the app was downloaded from (the one with the widgetlist.xml).
All debugging (alerts() calls), will be sent over this port, allowing for remote debugging.
I use NetCat to open a port and dump all logs, like so:
nc -l 45634
I've created this Answer for a topic that I know nothing about, but nevertheless I did spot something that threw a red flag in my direction... bounty or not.
First, I looked at your WineHQ Bug Report to see if this issue was resolved, but it's still pending as of this writing. I noticed that bug report had a reference link to the discussion which I clicked and followed.
Looking at the machine-code generated dump-error in that discussion proved informative.
Reference:
Z:\home\andy.wine\drive_c\Program Files (x86)\Samsung\Samsung TV
SDK(3.5.2)\Emulator\Emulator2012_v3.5\bin\Emulator2.exe
The above Path is the location of the file that caused the dump. That path is the red flag I mentioned.
Let me back up a tiny bit and explain about what I learned about Windows XP SP3 and IE8 which very well may apply here, or you can skip down to the line with the bold text.
I worked on a webpage project that used a lightbox plugin called Shadowbox. That project wasn't on a local server, just in a subfolder of a subfolder. It works fine in Firefox and Chrome but IE choked and didn't render any CSS from the plugins style sheet. Because I was very familiar with Shadowbox, I was 100% convinced it was not the plugin. So I started to think outside the box, and through trials and tribulations I discovered the culprit was just the actual path!
I had created a subfolder for the project that used /test(v1)/ in the Path and that's what broke IE8. Once I removed the parentheses, the CSS was loaded correctly. This same solution was also the cause of a CSS issue for a forum member who used Vista and IE9, so then it's conceivable these issues lie with Wine as well.
What issue is that? It's using illegal characters, the parentheses, in the path name. I will stop short and say the URL name only because it's the file path leading to the index.html file (and only relative paths were used in coding - parentheses could not be escaped - and base tag failed).
Firefox and Chrome were forgiving, but not IE. Even though you may not be using IE, it's possible that this issue extends outside of that.
My solution is not to use parentheses or whitespaces in any portion of your file path. While this may not solve this particular bug, at the very least you will not have sandbox Wine issues for when that file path becomes a URL path for whatever requirement (e.g., accessing a SWF object to be used as a video player). If IE browsers are unforgiving, so too can other embedded browsers or programing modules.
Recommended:
Z:\home\andy.wine\drive_c\Samsung\Samsung_TV
SDK_3.5.2\Emulator\Emulator2012_v3.5\bin\Emulator2.exe
Notice the above does not use the Program Files (x86) folder since that can't be changed per OS requirements. Having such a path will surely reduce, if not eliminate, any unforeseen errors. Cheers!
I know it's an old question, but since I'm delving into the process, I figured I'd share some links. Enjoy!
Decent quick start guide on developing for the Smart TV platform: http://www.samsungdforum.com/Guide/c02/index.html.
These are the minimum project requirements and some example files: http://www.samsungdforum.com/Guide/art00011/index.html.
For people who like doing everything with command line, smarttvjs (http://smarttvjs.org) has made it very easy:
$smarttvjs init #create sample project
... do some development (IDE
is nor required)
$smarttvjs build samsung (create a package for
samsung)
$smarttvjs run samsung #launch simulator

Communicate with the local machine from a web page

We have a web application. There are physical devices that we need to be able to communicate with, and we have access to all of our clients computers to install whatever software we need. Now, for the question: Is there a way to make this browser-agnostic? As in, not requiring ActiveX controls?
One of my ideas was to install a custom made webserver on each client and then have javascript on our webpage that communicates with that webserver. This could be done by the same way that http://earlz.biz.tm javascript can access subdomains assigned to 127.0.0.1 such as http://loopback.earlz.biz.tm The problem with this of course is that the client's custom made webserver would be forced to run on port 80(which will have conflicts at least sometimes), or we would have to use a nonstandard port for our web application, which is quite undesirable.
Does anyone else have ideas on how to do this?
Just to clarify. Our clients will be using regular PCs with Windows. We need to communicate with physical devices through these PCs. One such thing is a signature pad. So we want for people to be able to sign the signature pad and it show up in the web page.
I don't think browser-based is the solution for this. There are too many security issues. You're better off writing a desktop application that incorporates some web functionality.
I think web servers and possibly comet is the way to go.
Web servers can run on any port you like, as long as there aren't any firewalls blocking the ports, or they are configured to allow http traffic to pass through on different ports. Although theres nothing wrong with just using port 80 either.
On the mini web server you will then need to interact with the device. You mention you are a .net shop, so you will probably have to install linux and apache + mono on these devices - not sure if this is feasible.
Sounds like a great project.
I would try to look at Java Applets...
http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Programming/JDCBook/signed.html
"JDK 1.1 signed applets can access local system resources if the local system is properly set up to allow it. See the JDK 1.1 Signed Applet Example page for details."

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