e6414941ab
Reported: the unread count on the icon only changed when the app was
opened. Two reasons:
- Items read in the page never reached it, since only the player's own
mark-read refreshed the badge.
- The background refresh that should bring new items runs when iOS
chooses, which for this app has been rarely.
The page now sends All Subscriptions' count ({t:"unread", n}) each time
its list is drawn with a new one, so reading, and new items arriving
over the event stream while the app is open, set it at once. While an
episode plays the app is awake with the screen locked, so the player's
tick also re-checks every quarter of an hour.
With the app closed and nothing playing, the count still waits on iOS's
refresh. Push (#433) is what makes that exact.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
121 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
121 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
# iPX for iOS
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ipx's page in an app, with the audio played by the phone rather than the page: it plays on with
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the screen locked, and the lock screen, Control Center, headphones and a car over Bluetooth or USB
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drive it. Everything you see is the page, as on the home screen; the app adds the player behind it.
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## Build it
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On a Mac with Xcode:
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```sh
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brew install xcodegen
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cd ios && xcodegen generate && open iPX.xcodeproj
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```
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Set your team under Signing & Capabilities, pick your phone, and run. The project is generated
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from `project.yml`, so `.xcodeproj` is not in git: edit the yml. Nothing on Tower can build it.
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A free personal team works, but a build on it expires after seven days and is reinstalled from
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Xcode. A paid account ($99 a year) makes that a year and adds TestFlight. Playing with the screen
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locked is a plist key (`UIBackgroundModes: audio`), not an entitlement, so it works on either.
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CarPlay's own dashboard app does not: Apple grants `com.apple.developer.carplay-audio` on request.
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## Which server
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The first launch asks, with `https://ipodderx.sdf1.net` filled in; a bare host gets `https://`.
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Shake the phone to change it. Plain `http://` only on your own network
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(`http://192.168.1.130:8099`), which is all `NSAllowsLocalNetworking` allows. Sign in on the page
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that follows, through Cloudflare Access or ipx's own form; the cookies that leaves are what the
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player uses (`CookieBridge`). `-ipx.server <url>` as a launch argument overrides it for a run. `-ipx.noBadgePrompt YES` skips the badge permission dialog, which covers the page in a simulator run nobody is there to tap.
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### Opening with no connection
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The page's service worker, which keeps iPX readable offline in a browser (#389), runs in the app
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only for a server in `WKAppBoundDomains` in `project.yml` (#435): `ipodderx.sdf1.net`, with
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Cloudflare Access's and Authentik's hosts for signing in. For those the web view is app-bound, and
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iPX opens without a connection from the second launch on (the first installs the worker). What
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that costs:
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* The web view goes nowhere outside the list. A link to anywhere else opens in Safari; an
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embedded player from another site in an item's text may not load.
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* A server not in the list still opens, but WebKit then cuts the bridge, so the page plays its own
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audio: no lock screen, no CarPlay, nothing kept on the phone. That includes the LAN address.
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Another server means adding it to the list (ten at most) and building again.
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* Signing in that leaves those hosts, through another identity provider, opens in Safari and does
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not come back. Add its host too.
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A debug build adds `localhost`, so a simulator can test the worker against a page served on the Mac.
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## Player token
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The player normally rides on the web view's cookie, which ends with Cloudflare Access's session.
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To make it outlast that, shake the phone, choose Player Token and enter an ipx API token (the
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page's Settings, API tokens) and the address to send it to, `https://ipxapi.sdf1.net`. The token is
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kept in the keychain (`Credentials.swift`). The player's audio, positions, read flags, artwork and
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the unread badge go to that address with `Authorization: Bearer`; the page still signs in as it
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did, at the server address. Without a token the player sends only the cookie, as before.
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`ipxapi.sdf1.net` is the tunnel's route to the same ipx-web as `ipodderx.sdf1.net`, with no Access
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application in front, which would turn a bearer header away. Cloudflare's firewall (a custom rule
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on the `sdf1.net` zone) blocks every request to it except a bearer-token one for `/api/feeds`,
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`/api/me`, `/api/art`, `/api/entries/*` and `/media/*`; ipx still checks the token.
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## How it hangs together
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| `Sources/App.swift` | the app and its one scene |
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| `Sources/WebViewController.swift` | the `WKWebView`, the server question, a page that will not load |
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| `Sources/Bridge.swift` | the messages to and from `web/src/native.ts` |
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| `Sources/Playback.swift` | `AVPlayer`, the audio session, now playing, the remote commands, saving positions |
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| `Sources/CookieBridge.swift` | the web view's cookies into `HTTPCookieStorage.shared`, for the player |
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| `Sources/Server.swift` | which server |
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## The messages
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The page's half is `web/src/native.ts`, and `node tests/native-bridge.ts` holds it to these. A
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change to them is a change to both halves in one commit, and the page has to be deployed before
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an app that needs it.
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Page to app, on `webkit.messageHandlers.ipx`:
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| `{t:"ready", version, rate, volume}` | the bridge is in |
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| `{t:"load", url, enc, feedId, guid, title, feedTitle, artwork, position, duration, rate, volume}` | the element's `src` was set to an audio file |
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| `{t:"play"}` `{t:"pause"}` `{t:"stop"}` | |
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| `{t:"seek", to}` `{t:"rate", v}` `{t:"volume", v}` | |
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| `{t:"position", url}` | save where we are; a path, not a time, since a page frozen in the background holds an old one |
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| `{t:"keep", url}` `{t:"unkeep", url}` | keep a file on the phone, or let it go: the page's path for it, `/media/42` or `/media/42/deadair` (#425) |
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| `{t:"clearKept"}` | signing out: everything kept goes |
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| `{t:"sleep", secs}` | pause after `secs`, fading out over the last ten; 0 turns the timer off (#429) |
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| `{t:"unread", n}` | All Subscriptions' unread count, whenever the page's list is drawn with a new one: the icon's badge (#421) |
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| `{t:"haptic", kind}` | a press felt: `tap`, `done` (marked read) or `warn` (an error) (#430) |
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| `{t:"route", x, y, w, h}` | open the AirPlay picker, pointing at the page's button, in the web view's points (#429) |
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App to page, as `window.ipxNative.on(...)`:
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| `{t:"time", cur, dur}` | `timeupdate` |
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| `{t:"meta", dur}` | `loadedmetadata`: the page seeks to where you left off |
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| `{t:"state", playing}` | `play` or `pause` |
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| `{t:"ended"}` | |
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| `{t:"error", message}` | the page says so |
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| `{t:"kept", urls, keeping}` | what the phone holds and is fetching, at `ready` and after each change; sent whether or not anything plays |
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| `{t:"keepFailed", url, message}` | one that could not be kept, and why |
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| `{t:"host", can}` | at `ready`: what this build does itself (`sleep`, `route`), so a page newer than the app offers only those |
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| `{t:"sleep", left}` | at `ready`, while the timer runs: seconds left, for a page that reloaded |
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| `{t:"slept"}` | the timer ran out and playback paused |
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The app writes the position (every ten seconds and on pause) and marks an item read at 90%, from
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its own clock, so both happen while the page is frozen. Video stays in the page.
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## Not yet
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* Without the player token the cookie is the only credential: when Cloudflare Access's expires
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mid-drive, playback stops with "Sign in again", and opening the app signs in.
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* CarPlay's dashboard app needs Apple's entitlement first; then it is a second scene over the same
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`Playback`.
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