ENA-118 Replace text-encoding polyfill with much smaller library, saving 500KB

[adroitwhiz]

Resolves

• Towards Replace the text-encoding package #6898

Proposed Changes

This PR replaces the text-encoding package with fastestsmallesttextencoderdecoder.

Reason for Changes

The text-encoding package has been deprecated by its maintainer, and also adds 500KB of encoding data for non-UTF-8 text. Because we're only using it to encode UTF-8, that 500KB is entirely unnecessary.

Test Coverage

Must be tested manually.

Here, the TextEncoder API is used to encode assets for the default project. To test this, create a new default project in Legacy Edge, the only browser without native TextEncoder support.

Browser Coverage

Check the OS/browser combinations tested (At least 2)

Mac

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari

Windows

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge

Linux

• Firefox

Chromebook

• Chrome

iPad

• Safari

Android Tablet

• Chrome

[adroitwhiz]

Test failures seem to be the result of a ChromeDriver version mismatch

[benjiwheeler]

To be super clear, this way of providing encoding functions is only needed on legacy Edge, right? Does that include basically all known pre-chromium versions of Edge?

[benjiwheeler]

Added "accessibility" label because reducing download size (for both app and website) is meaningful for improving access when data is slow or expensive

[apple502j]

@benjiwheeler Yep, this library is used by all Legacy (non-Chromium) Edge - and by ONLY the Legacy Edge (at least for supported environments).

[adroitwhiz]

Just a reminder that in order to actually remove this huge dependency from the bundle, you'll need to remove it from all the other packages too.

[github-actions]

🎉 This PR is included in version 4.0.37 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀

[adroitwhiz]

@cwillisf Since this PR was first opened, I came across https://www.npmjs.com/package/fast-text-encoding, which seems to be far more popular and faster. I can create another PR for that if you want.

You could also consider dropping the polyfill entirely--the only browser which does not support TextEncoder and TextDecoder is Edge Legacy, which has reached EOS and doesn't even seem to be installable anymore.

[cwillisf]

Yeah - I think removing it entirely is the right answer. Honestly, I merged this because it's relatively self-contained, and wanted to send a signal that I'm trying to make at least some small amount of progress 😅