"New UI" tabs not working on Linux?

[kengruven]

I have two installs of OLA "version 0.10.8". In the "New UI" web interface as served by macOS (Homebrew), the tabs work fine. In the "New UI" web interface as served by Linux (Debian), all of the tabs redirect back to the home page.

It doesn't matter which OS or browser I use to view the webpage. It only seems to matter which server I'm looking at.

I'd be happy to perform any tests, to try to diagnose this.

[peternewman]

I think this is a bug where Jquery is missing in the deb due to Debian politics.

Can we have your olad -l 4 logs:
https://www.openlighting.org/ola/get-help/ola-faq/#How_do_I_get_olad_-l_4_logs

But also just check with developer tools if you're getting a 404 downloading that library from our webserver?

[kengruven]

Hmm, doesn't look like it's related to jQuery. Resource "/new/libs/jquery/js/jquery.min.js" gives "HTTP/1.1 200 OK", and the contents look fine. jQuery is definitely included in the Debian OLA package.

[peternewman]

Okay, that's good they've fixed that bug then, I'd sort of lost track.

Can we see some olad -l 4 logs then please, and maybe check your browser console too?

[kengruven]

The level-4 logs are 500+ lines, mostly loading hardware plugins, and PosixInterfacePicker enumerating all my network interfaces multiple times. I tried diff'ing the Mac/Linux logs, and it was just a big mess. I'll see if I can turn off all the unused plugins to get a more minimal test case.

As for the browser side:

• On macOS (where it works), the Universe 1 URL is "http://localhost:9090/new/#/universe/1", and the "Faders" tab has URL "http://localhost:9090/new/#/universe/1/faders"
• On Linux (where it doesn't), the Universe 1 URL is "http://localhost:9090/new/#!/universe/1#%2F", and the "Faders" tab has the same relative link but clicking it takes me to "http://localhost:9090/new/#!/#%2Funiverse%2F1%2Ffaders"

In both cases, the web browser console has no errors or warnings.

[peternewman]

The level-4 logs are 500+ lines, mostly loading hardware plugins, and PosixInterfacePicker enumerating all my network interfaces multiple times. I tried diff'ing the Mac/Linux logs, and it was just a big mess. I'll see if I can turn off all the unused plugins to get a more minimal test case.

I'm quite happy to just trawl through them, I'm used to what to ignore, feel free to hide/delete your NICs if you're worried about that.

I think the log should show the requested URLs which probably would have clarified the below too.

As for the browser side:

• On macOS (where it works), the Universe 1 URL is "http://localhost:9090/new/#/universe/1", and the "Faders" tab has URL "http://localhost:9090/new/#/universe/1/faders"
• On Linux (where it doesn't), the Universe 1 URL is "http://localhost:9090/new/#!/universe/1#%2F", and the "Faders" tab has the same relative link but clicking it takes me to "http://localhost:9090/new/#!/#%2Funiverse%2F1%2Ffaders"

In both cases, the web browser console has no errors or warnings.

So the %2F is a URL encoded /, but there's the exclamation mark too!

Try copying the jquery file(s) from the Mac onto Linux and see if that fixes it (Linux will probably have some symlinks if you're using the deb package). It might be the new version is incompatible.

[kengruven]

It looks like the Mac jquery.min.js is "v2.1.3" (which is the same version that's included in the ola repo), and the Debian jquery.min.js is "v3.5.1" (!). I'll try swapping them later to see if this is in fact the issue.

[kengruven]

The jQuery version makes no difference, but reverting the angular and angular-route libraries which Debian substitutes (1.8.2-2) with the older version included in OLA (1.3.14) fixes it.

I'll file a bug report with Debian.

[kengruven]

Filed: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1016447

I have no idea if it's feasible or desirable to update OLA to use the latest version of Angular, so I'll leave it up to you whether to close this bug against OLA or not.

[kripton]

With https://blog.angular.io/discontinued-long-term-support-for-angularjs-cc066b82e65a in mind, I don't know if it's worth to put much effort into the "new web UI" as it is right now. However, if it's a point we need to fix in order to get our update into the Debian archives, I will work on updating it.
Alternatives:

• Drop the "new Web UI" from ola and simply keep on using the classic one
• Re-write the "new Web UI" using the latest "Angular", which also means converting it from JavaScript to TypeScript
• Re-write the "new Web UI" in another web framework that people are more familiar with (I'm personally quite skilled in React but it could also happen that it falls out of support at some time. The world of "web toolkits" is still moving quite fast)

[FloEdelmann]

Drop the "new Web UI" from ola and simply keep on using the classic one

I would be quite sad about that, as I regularly use the new Web UI instead of the old one. But having to maintain both in parallel seems like a waste of resources anyway.

Re-write the "new Web UI" using the latest "Angular"
Re-write the "new Web UI" in another web framework that people are more familiar with

Given it's a rewrite either way, I'd suggest using Nuxt.js (built on top of Vue.js), since we are already using it at https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/open-fixture-library. It makes writing a web server application quite easy, and requires a standardized folder structure (which is good for new contributors).

[kripton]

I would be quite sad about that, as I regularly use the new Web UI instead of the old one. But having to maintain both in parallel seems like a waste of resources anyway.

I definitely agree that simply dropping it would be quite a loss. Maintaining two in parallel is too much effort to justify it in the long run but the "new" one needs to be stable and future-proof before we decide to drop the old one.

Given it's a rewrite either way, I'd suggest using Nuxt.js (built on top of Vue.js), since we are already using it at https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/open-fixture-library. It makes writing a web server application quite easy, and requires a standardized folder structure (which is good for new contributors).

I certainly don't oppose switching to Nuxt.js for a rewrite (later). I personally don't have experince with it, neither with Vue.js, but it's not that I couldn't learn it and if we have people who are skilled with it it's even better.

For the moment I will try to make the new Web UI work with the "latest" AngularJS, which seems to be the one that Debian ships with (1.8.x). Maybe I can also merge #1739 while working on it but the focus is definitely 1.8 compatibility