implement foxr.launch()

[deepsweet]

https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer/blob/v1.6.2/docs/api.md#puppeteerlaunchoptions

• download Firefox
  • which version and how to control that?
  • multiplatform
• unpack it
  • to where?
• run it as child process with necessary args and profile
• kill that process on browser.close()

[saidsay-so]

I have investigated and there is some problems:

• there is no zip archive for Windows (except for nightly: https://support.mozilla.org/fr/questions/784553),
• there is no way to get them (easily).

I don't know if macOS dmg's will do the trick but Linux versions seems to work.

[deepsweet]

Hi.

macOS .dmg is just a renamed .zip archive, should just work.

Regarding Windows – I found this:

• https://www.firefox-usb.com/
• https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

Not sure how much we can trust these sources though.

[deepsweet]

Also https://github.com/freaktechnik/get-firefox

[saidsay-so]

Sorry, hi !
I'm not sure about firefox-usb but I know that Firefox Portable is open-source.
And get-firefox seems to be more a CLI app than an usable API.
Edit: nevermind, get-firefox is good.

[saidsay-so]

Ok so I tried to build the launch() function with get-firefox but it was more easy to proceed using taskcluster-container.
I finally succeed to download Firefox but when I launched it, I discovered that it needs to create a new profile to make it separated from other firefox processes and preferences.

[deepsweet]

Yeah, I've already done this in my dockerized headless Firefox project, see args and profile. We could place the profile in the same folder to where we downloaded Firefox.

[saidsay-so]

I didn't looked at it before, it would have helped me a lot !
The problem that I was facing is the -profile argument for which I gave a file instead of a folder.
But now I will test it.

[saidsay-so]

So for now my launch() create a directory using tmpdir() and mkdtemp('foxr-') and make all the operations inside it.

[deepsweet]

I'd check where Puppeteer stores Chromium, it feels like it's in their module folder inside of node_modules/.

Also, I'd like to initially implement this as a separate package to not make the same mistake as Puppeteer – see puppeteer vs puppeteer-core. Something like you have to install foxr and download-firefox-blah-blah to avoid PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD env var hackaround and then launch() will do the rest. Also we can transform this repo into a monorepo with @foxr namespace, I've it registered already. What do you think?

Thanks for your investigation!

[saidsay-so]

So launch() will have to test the presence of download-firefox and use an exported function ?
And yes, using a namespace would be a great idea to manage with ease the repos !

[deepsweet]

will have to test the presence of download-firefox and use an exported function

That's the weak part of my idea :) My personal usage of Foxr/Puppeteer is limited to an external dockerized solution, so that PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD felt like a hack until they introduced puppeteer-core thing. There is no need to download entire browser by default, I believe that it should be an opt-in.

How to wire it together is a good question.

launch() has an executablePath option, so maybe "downloader" can export some property with the file path of downloaded browser.

[foolip]

@jgraham probably knows how to download Firefox automatically, this is done in web-platform-tests, although in Python, here:
https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt/blob/59bed3508ceae6bd16e31971c3d0448d13a5113b/tools/wpt/browser.py#L132

[saidsay-so]

Thanks for the help! But I already built a module that can do this. The problem is how to "modularize" the function.

[deepsweet]

If you choose a path to download Firefox in deterministic way, i.e. it doesn't have random parts and it gives the same result every time, you can export it and pass to Foxr:

foxr.launch({
  executablePath: firefoxDownloader.getPath()
})

[saidsay-so]

The path could change with the OS (maybe not if it's relative) ?

[deepsweet]

It's fine as long as "firefox-downloader" module will use the same path as it returns with getPath().

[saidsay-so]

I pushed my changes on the launch branch of my fork !

[deepsweet]

Looks good! I'm a bit off this project for the last few days, but will come back really soon.

[deepsweet]

Alright.

I'm going to implement launch() as an abstract downloads-free method, and then we'll think about a monorepo under @foxr NPM scope.

[saidsay-so]

Ok

[saidsay-so]

I created a (basic) module to download Firefox. https://github.com/MusiKid/firefox-downloader

[saidsay-so]

The module is more complete now. macOS support needs to be tested however.

[deepsweet]

Nice. Shouldn't download() be await'ed in readme?

[saidsay-so]

Effectively !

[saidsay-so]

So where should Firefox be extracted ?

[deepsweet]

I'm not quite sure. What's your current solution?

[saidsay-so]

I don't know

[saidsay-so]

Maybe just let the user define it ?