"Upgrading" a WebXDC app

webxdc
1

Has there been much thought about how users might be able to “upgrade” a WebXDC app? Many of the apps are ephemeral (such as polls) and so it doesn’t make sense, the app appears in the conversation and then goes past in scroll and if you want to use it again you attach it again.

But some apps, like shared notes or calendar, are more “sticky” in nature and it would make sense when a new “version” of the xdc file comes out to be able to replace it while keeping all state updates so far the same (of course this assumes the xdc is designed to be backwards-compatible with older versions of its own state updates…)

What do people think about this?

3 Likes
2

We thought about this, but ultimately postponed it because there are so many open questions.
Here two of them:

A: You can’t really expect all xdc to be perfectly backward compatible, so you would either need some backup or downgrade solution.

B: in a p2p scenario you can not be sure that everyone already uses the upgraded version, let alone even received it.

and some solution ideas:

  1. A could be worked around with sending a new message/instance with all the old updates, but the new xdc version, this way the old state would not be lost immediately.
  2. Exporting and importing state/backup between xdc instances could allow a first version of upgradable apps.

Also webxdc apps are currently pinned on a single message, but we could also imagine that you could pin an app to a chat or have it in a way where it is more persistent and new members automatically get it and it’s previous state.
But even then problem B remains, and unless your app is forward and backward compatible (by ignoring unknown properties for example) there really is a need for a solution to problem B.
Also there is the question how this would play into future status update discarding / condensing/aggregating into a single state (I think some call this “checkpointing”).

3

Here’s a user-land workaround (that may not work for some apps, e.g. those who do webxdc.sendUpdate immediately on first open). I’ll demonstrate it in the console (so you probably need Delta Chat Desktop), but export/import can be done inside the app as well, say, with clipboard.

  1. Send the new version of the app to the chat (don’t do anything with it yet).

  2. Open the original app, then open the console for it. Paste this:

    const updates = [];
await webxdc.setUpdateListener(update => {
    updates.push(update);
});
JSON.stringify(updates);

  3. Right-click the resulting string, “Copy string contents”.

  4. Open the new version of the app, and open the console. Paste this:

    const updates = REPLACE_ME;
for (const update of updates) {
    webxdc.sendUpdate(update, 'Import');
}

  5. Replace REPLACE_ME with the coped string and press Enter.

Now the state of the new version should be the same as the state of the old one.

4

A&B: What is the difference to an ordinary Android/iPhone app? You can use an app without Internet for one year and after going online the data must be compatible, too. Sure, it would be a great feature (for all OSes) to visit each app in each old possible version, but again, its not a specific p2p problem.

It would be great to be able to create “upgradable” apps by creating a symmetric key pair and only the owner of this key is able to create new versions of this app. Maybe the (constant) public key and a version specific signature could be part of the manifest for such an app? This would be less chaotic and I think the other OSes are doing it the same way.
(And if you dont have the key, just start with version 1.0 with a new key)

Why this would be nice:
Even if you update some fonts or the user interface and leave the data code untouched, you have to upload a complete new app. For games it is really annoying to loose the highscore every time the game gets some updates. And If you can ex/import it, cheating is too easy :grinning: