Spotless: Modern dev workflow for Spotfire scripts

This is a prototype.

It currently supports:

• Loading Javascript code from a server outside of Spotfire (see DXP javascript "spotlessLoader")

• Calling IronPython scripts from Javascript with or without parameters

spotless.callPython('userScript1', {testParam: 'I am a param passed from Javascript.'})

• Setting Document Properties from Javscript

spotless.setDocProp('spotlessDebug', 'Page2 set this')
spotless.setDocProps({
  spotlessDebug: 'prop1 ' + spotless.randStr(),
  spotlessDebug2: 'prop2 ' + spotless.randStr()
})

• Showing a Python MessageBox for debug purposes ("it's working!")

spotless.messageBox("Hello world from Javascript-to-Python.")

Trying Spotless

1. Launch the spotless dev server:

npm install
npm start

2. Open examples/Starter.dxp

3. Code is currently only loaded from js/spotless-dev.js. To try spotless, edit this file and save your changes. When you switch tabs in Spotfire, all javascript code is reloaded from spotless-dev.js

4. Use the Spotfire development console. Try running a Spotless command to get a feel for things.

spotless.messageBox("hello world")

Goals

Bring sanity and peace to Earth.

• One file: JS source builds into a single JS file which can be hosted on CDN rather than staticly inside a DXP (webpack)
• Source maps to ease debugging in Spotfire/chromium's dev console
• Hot reloading: Spotfire browser reloads upon code change detected.
• Bring your own IDE: liberate developers from Spotfire's JS code editor
• Developer collaboration: Pull both JS and Python scripts out of DXP to enable git version control
• SASS and CSS building, also to optionally be hosted on CDN rather than staticly inside of DXP
• Unified error reporting between Python and JS (capture Python exceptions and print(), display in dev console)
• Call Python scripts from Javascript
• Call Javascript from Python
• Blocking calls: wait or callback once Python script completes
• Returning values from Python scripts to Javascript callback function
• Bind Javascript variables to document properties

Notes

Useful for debugging Spotfire IronPython exceptions and print statements: (set debug level to Trace in Help menu)

tail -f Spotfire.Dxp.SupportDiagnostics.log | grep -E "spotlessProxy|IronPython"