How do I change the server.js file in /backend

January 14, 2020 at 2:10am

Hi,

I am following the "Communication via JSON-RPC" docs and am at the point where I have the websocket started but the handler is missing. I believe this is because I am unable to edit the /browser-app/src-gen/backend/server.js file. If I edit this file and build it is replaced by a fresh server.js file. How do I make changes here. Specifically I need to add an import for my new backend service and a container.load() on that service.

January 14, 2020 at 2:53am

Anton Kosyakov@anton-kosyakov

Team

2:53am

You are not supposed to edit this file. It is auto generated bootstrap code.

2:53am

If you want to do any code customizataions you need a custom Theia extension.

2:53am

https://theia-ide.org/docs/authoring_extensions/

Siddhant Agrawal@siddhant-agrawal

3:02am

I am trying to create a custom Theia extention. I followed your docs to generate the basic widget extension and I am building on top of that.

Anton Kosyakov@anton-kosyakov

Team

3:04am

ok, it would mean you are missing connection handler binding in the backend module

January 14, 2020 at 9:40pm

Siddhant Agrawal@siddhant-agrawal

9:40pm

import { ContainerModule } from 'inversify';
import { ConnectionHandler, JsonRpcConnectionHandler } from "@theia/core";
import { IProblemInspectorClient, IProblemInspectorServer} from "./problem-inspector-protocol"
export const problemInspectorServerModule = new ContainerModule(bind => {
    bind(ConnectionHandler).toDynamicValue(ctx =>
        new JsonRpcConnectionHandler<IProblemInspectorClient>("/problem-inspector", client => {
            const problemInspectorServer = ctx.container.get<IProblemInspectorServer>(IProblemInspectorServer);
            problemInspectorServer.setClient(client);
            return problemInspectorServer;
        })
    ).inSingletonScope()
});

I have created the above for the connection handler binding.

and in the server.js I added:

const { problemInspectorServerModule } = require('problem-inspector-extension/lib/browser/problem-inspector-server-module');
container.load(problemInspectorServerModule);

Anton Kosyakov@anton-kosyakov

Team

2:21am

Could you share your code as github repo?

2:21am

not sure what you mean by and in the server.js i added - you should not modify this file manually

2:21am

you should expose the backend module in theiaExtensions in your extension package.json, docs should cover it

Edited

Siddhant Agrawal@siddhant-agrawal

3:10am

Hi Anton, firstly I'd just like to thank you for your help. I am working on getting the code up on a repo so that you may look at it. I am basically trying to follow along this doc: https://theia-ide.org/docs/json_rpc, that will allow me to create a backend that I can call via a websocket and have that trigger a frontend event. At the end of the doc it mentions "Loading the modules in the example backend and frontend" which is why I tried to modify the server.js file. It seems like this is not the way it is done anymore. Could you point me to some docs or an example that has a backend?

Anton Kosyakov@anton-kosyakov

Team

5:23am

@siddhant-agrawal

I see, yes docs look outdated, in https://theia-ide.org/docs/authoring_extensions/ look at Implementing the Extension

5:23am

each extension should declare frontend/backend entry points in package.json via theiaExtensions attribute

5:24am

theia build will analyze these declarations and generate server.js

January 16, 2020 at 7:28pm

Siddhant Agrawal@siddhant-agrawal

7:28pm

I see, I was able to add the backend module into the theiaExtensions attribute and I see it being loaded in server.js. Thank you for your help!