Editor As A PWA
In 2021 I thought of building a text editor based on Monaco and built as an Electron application was a good idea.
Rather than wrap Electron around the app, I will try to build an editor again but make it a PWA.
A PWA presents many of the advantages of a native app without many of the disadvantages.
- Don't require downloads There is no app store to download from
- Updates are automatic since there is no app store to download from
- Installation is optional you can either run it in your browser or install it on your computer as a standalone app
So the goals for the project are:
- Evaluate if Monaco is (still) a good editor for a PWA
- If not then what would make a good alternative?
- Integrate the following APIs into the process and evaluate how they integrate with Monaco
- File System Access API to provide open/save functionality
- Async Clipboard API for copy/paste
- File Handling API to let the editor open files of a given type
- Integrate a testing framework to the project where it doesn't exist already
- Evaluate if module bundling is still a good idea
- Test if ES2017 is still a good target for compilation
- Test if there's a way to make the editor save to remote locations like Dropbox, Google Drive, or an S3 bucket?
Throughout the year I will document the process, challenges, and learnings from building the project. By the end of the year, I hope to have a working prototype of the editor ready for use and review.