Help Needed: Inconsistent Plugin Fetching in a Custom Plugin Library

telumire · November 25, 2024, 10:41pm

Hello everyone,

I want to democratize plugin libraries and make it simple for anyone to create their own with minimal technical expertise. To achieve this, I’m leveraging the TiddlyHost JSON endpoint.

I managed to do it by embedding a custom library script directly with the tag $:/tags/RawMarkupWikified/TopHead. This approach has a significant drawback: the entire wiki needs to be loaded when calling the script. The bigger the wiki, the slower the list of plugins is loaded.

Instead of embedding the library script within the TiddlyHost wiki, I want to host it on GitHub Pages. The script can be called like this:

https://designthinkerer.github.io/tw/tiddlyhost-plugin-library/relay.html?libraryUrl=https://scalable-plugin-library.tiddlyhost.com/

Demo: https://test-scalable-plugin-library.tiddlyhost.com/

Here’s how it works:

The script fetches the asset list from the TiddlyHost wiki (libraryUrl) via its JSON endpoint, so only the list of assets is loaded initially.
When a plugin is installed, the script fetches the plugin content through another JSON endpoint.

This method should greatly reduces loading times, even for TiddlyHost wikis containing a lot of plugins. It should also be easier on tiddlyhost bandwith (installing a plugin with the other method download the whole plugin wiki twice).

It sort of works, but sometimes the plugin list fails to load, and I can’t figure out why. I think that maybe this is a timing issue ?

Does anyone have any insights or suggestions to help resolve this issue?

github.com

DesignThinkerer/tw/blob/main/tiddlyhost-plugin-library/relay.html

<script type="module">
    (async function () {
    "use strict";

    /**
     * Global variables initialized during script execution.
     * @type {Object[]} assetList - List of assets fetched from the server.
     */
    let assetList = [];

    /**
     * Main execution block
     */
    try {
        const fetchedData = await fetchData();
        if (!fetchedData) {
            throw new Error("Failed to fetch required data. Exiting script.");
        }

        // Parse and store the asset list

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linonetwo · November 28, 2024, 6:05am

I don’t quite understand tiddlyhost’s JSON endpoint, if it is standard nodejs wiki HTTP API, then fetching plugin will be just GET its title, and you get a tiddler JSON.

In CPL, we support create plugin using Gatha, and simply fill the tiddlyhost URL. And CPL auto extract plugin JSON from HTML wiki, and available for download (using nodejs API inside Github action, which is invisible to users, and implementation is very simple, because nodejs wiki already provide these features).

BTW, download & upgrade plugin from 10+ different plugin library is not a good user experience. On user side, still need a centuralized entry.