[jbosstools-dev] LiveReload Tooling Status

[Xavier Coulon]

Hi !

Here's a status on the LiveReload tooling:

- JBoss Tools 4.1.0.Alpha2 introduces a basic version of the LiveReload support. This version only covers LiveReload for browsers that have the LiveReload extension installed and that access static files in the workspace. There's little screencast to show what you can do with it.

- Upcoming features (still work in progress - expected in JBoss Tools 4.1.0.Beta1): using the same "LiveReload Server", if you have an app server (JBoss AS 7 for example, but other app servers such as Tomcat should be supported as well) already started in your workspace, the LiveReload server detects that it is running. Now, when a browser accesses a resource on this server and enables the LiveReload extension, each time some changes are published on the server, the LiveReload server can send notifications to both the Browser accessing the static file (using the file:/// scheme) and the generated resource (using the http:// scheme) are refreshed. No extra configuration needed.
I also uploaded a video that demos this stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6GnSo74XM&feature=youtube_gdata_player (better viewed on a large screen)

The next task will consist in providing a proxy that will provide <script> injection at the bottom of the returned HTML pages, so that the browser does not even need to install and activate the LiveReload extension. This will also mean that browser that cannot install extension would also be supported: mobile, tablets, etc. Again, this should not require extra configuration at the "LiveReload Server" level, I think everything can be done automatically.

At the end of the day, a user could livereload some static (html/css/js) or dynamic (JSF, etc.) content on multiple devices at the same time, without having to hit the refresh button on all browsers after each save. I really think this could improve the productivity of developers. In fact, I already had a prototype of this and it's quite funny and adictive to see multiple devices refreshing all at the same time :-) 


ps: bonus: I may even generate a QR Code so that users don't have to type the tedious URLs on the touch keyboards.

What do you think about this ? 

Thanks.
Best regards,
/Xavier


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