How to upload an app to Bangle.js without using GitHub?

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2025-01-25 by mbork

I thought I could just clone the App Loader, copy one of the existing apps and run it locally. And that's what I've done:

• I cloned the repo
• I copied the Anton Clock and modified it to my liking
• I was able to run it emulator and in RAM of my device just fine, using the Web IDE
• I ran npm ci, npm run local and headed to http://localhost:8080/, but I saw no apps, nor could I connect to my Bangle.
  What am I doing wrong?

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2025-01-25 by Humpelstilzchen

The steps do sound correct. Maybe you did a syntax error in the metadata.json?

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by mbork

I don't think so. In fact, I did an experiment: I removed my app from the apps directory so that the repo was in pristine condition, and the same thing happened.

Browser console said

Uncaught ReferenceError: Const is not defined
    at loader.js:10:3

maybe that's the problem?

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by @halemmerich

Have you tried just starting a small HTTP-Server in the parent directory of the Repository? I use python3 -m http.server 4001 --bind 127.0.0.1 instead of npm for that. darkhttpdhas worked in the past for me as well.
Are the submodules for core and webtools checked out and up-to-date?

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by Humpelstilzchen

Just updated to master (a603d96c6), still works for me.

Just a guess, did you fetch the git submodules? Also what version of node are you running? I'm still on v18.19.0

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by mbork

Ha, thanks! I had no idea git submodules were involved, that helped! I really should have read the readme more carefully...

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by @thyttan

Where could that information have been presented for you to see it 'naturally' while setting up?

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by mbork

Well, as I said, it was my laziness and only skimming the readme. (Also the fact that I never user it submodules before, I guess.) I assumed that npm ci and looking at the script shown by npm run would be enough – of course, I was wrong.

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Posted at 2025-01-25 by @thyttan

Ok, thanks for elaborating! 🙂

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Posted at 2025-01-26 by mbork

Hey, one more question (possibly connected to this, so I'm using the same thread). I succeeded in uploading the app using a local version of the App Loader, but I still can't run it in the emulator this way. Even for the Anton Clock, I get

// Error loading http://localhost:8080/apps/antonclk/app.js

in the right-hand window of the Web IDE, and while the emulator starts, the app does not. Am I doing something wrong again? This time I searched the readme for the kyword emulator, but got no hints.

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Posted at 2025-01-27 by @gfwilliams

Ok, that's tricky - the issue is that the Web IDE is just the normal one on https://www.espruino.com/ide/ ? But I'm pretty sure a normal HTTPS webpage isn't allowed to access your HTTP website hosted locally.

You could try and host locally with HTTPS but certificates can cause you problems - personally if you just want to try an app out when hosted locally, I'd copy the app's source (eg http://localhost:8080/apps/antonclk/app.js), paste it into the IDE manually and click 'upload' - it's all the IDE would do anyway