WebPlugin with full HTML5 support like Chrome

wojciech_maslanka_oc · November 14, 2017, 8:51pm

I can`t use Royal
TSX to manage vCenter and ESX today via html5 interface. Safari webplugin is
not supported by VMware because lack of full html5 compatibility. For example,
tasks are not displayed, blue screen instead of login prompt in esxi.

felix_deimel · November 14, 2017, 10:14pm

Hi,

we don’t currently have a Chrome plugin for Royal TSX and there are no plans to change that in the near future.

Unfortunately there’s no Chrome framework on macOS that we could use to integrate Chrome into Royal TSX without major effort and a huge increase in download size and performance impact for the whole app.

While it’s really unfortunate that the VMware web client currently does not work properly with Safari, that’s something VMware has to fix on their end.

best regards,

felix

wojciech_maslanka · September 11, 2018, 8:38pm

On the webpage about Royal TSX 4.0 Beta you have written “Web connections can now be used in Chrome and Firefox browser extensions”. I installed this version but I cant find Chrome extension. How can I install them?

Regards

https://www.royalapplications.com/ts/mac/features-beta

felix_deimel · September 12, 2018, 9:07am

Hi Wojciech,

I think you misunderstood that statement.

This actually refers to being able to use web connections created in Royal TSX from our Firefox and Chrome browser extensions. Previously, only credential objects were shown and usable from the browser extensions. Now you also access web connections.

So to clear up the confusion: There are no new web plugins included in Royal TSX V4.

cheers,

felix

stephan · September 15, 2018, 5:19pm

Mailplane uses https://github.com/brave/brave-browser , it’s based on Chromium, and developed pretty actively.

felix_deimel · September 17, 2018, 7:34am

Hi Stephan,

interesting. I’ll look into it. However, I strongly suspect that the same limitations as other Chromium-based SDKs applies to brave. Probably also needs deep hooks into the main application which effectively is a no-go for our plugin architecture. Also, since it’s based on Chromium the additional binary size will likely be significant. And last but not least, the example app you gave (Mailplane) is essentially a browser with an interface dedicated to displaying Google webapps so it’s not really comparable to Royal TSX.

cheers,

felix

felix_deimel · September 17, 2018, 7:39am

Hi again,

just looked into Mailplane’s app bundle. The full app is around 200MB. The brave framework totals 156MB. So if this framework needs to be linked directly to the app (instead of a dynamically loaded plugin) that’s already a no-go for Royal TSX. Currently, Royal TSX comes in at below 40MB (without plugins) and I’m not going to add almost 4 times as much just to support a new browser engine.

If the brave framework can be loaded dynamically from a plugin, it would still be possible but I have to do more fiddling before I can comment on that.

cheers,

felix

wojciech_maslanka · September 19, 2018, 7:52pm

I understand, but lack of full html 5 support is a big problem A lot of admins are using Vmware vSphere, and it is not working well on Royal TSX

stephan · September 19, 2018, 8:00pm

I rather give up 200MB and have full HTML 5 support. If it will be added is always up to the user to make the choice between small royal tsx footprint and installing the 200MB plugin with HTML 5 support.

felix_deimel · September 20, 2018, 6:14am

The problem is not shipping a 200MB plugin. The problem is that all of the chromium based SDKs require some kind of hook into the app which makes a plugin impossible. The 200MB would need to be added to the app with no way of letting the user decide if he wants or needs those extra 200MB for a browser engine that’s based on the same roots as Safari (WebKit).

andrew_cleland · October 30, 2018, 9:21am

How about a plug-in based on Firefox’s engine instead of Chrome (I like Chrome as a browser but it does ‘do it’s own thing’ a bit too much)? As the others have noted, not being able to use the vSphere HTML5 client in Royal TXS is a pain, especially when I can manage pretty much everything else from TSX (which I really like!).

felix_deimel · October 30, 2018, 9:32am

Hi Andrew,

exactly what problems do you have with the vSphere client in Royal TSX?

We have multiple ESX lab installations here and all can be accessed using the Royal TSX WebKit plugin just fine.

If you’re aware of a SDK/API for embedding Firefox in Mac applications I’m all ears.

cheers,

felix

andrew_cleland · October 30, 2018, 9:50am

Hello Felix,

Well I’ve not gone beyond the point that vSphere warns you that you are using an unsupported browser (Firefox ≥ 34 or Chrome ≥ 39 on MacOS) - I don’t have a test vSphere environment to try it on and I’m not risking a live one.

Sorry, no idea about Firefox SDKs or APIs - I’m just a lowly sysadmin I’d assumed there would be something seeing as FF is open source but it seems not.

Regards,

Andrew.

felix_deimel · October 30, 2018, 9:53am

Hi Andrew,

which version of vSphere would that be? I’m not seeing such a warning here.

In any case, this is likely due to a hard-coded browser version check which is bad practice. Instead, one should check if the required features are supported by the browser. It’s unlikely that this causes any issues since I’m not aware of any API calls that are made by the VMware web client which aren’t supported by Safari.

Do you see the same warning when accessing your vSphere environment using Safari?

cheers,

felix

andrew_cleland · October 30, 2018, 10:30am

Hello,

It’s using the VCSA, ver 6.5.0.22000. I’ve not tried vSphere in Safari, it’s not a browser I tend to use (Chrome, Firefox preferred).

I think when I have a few moments to spin up a lab environment I’ll try using TSX with the Webkit plugin, I see I can set a custom UI string in the plug-in so I could make the message go-away and see how things work.

Thanks,

Andrew.

felix_deimel · October 30, 2018, 10:43am

Exactly, you can use a site like whatsmyuseragent.org to grab the user agent string of Safari and paste that in the “Use custom User Agent String” field in the “Advanced” settings of your web connection. That should get rid of the warning.

rmn_it · October 30, 2018, 12:54pm

We are using the Web plugin to access our esx hosts. It does show a blue screen which is annoying but right click in the window and select Reload and then the login prompt should display. Irritating but at least it works. We have the URL configured for the esx host console to: https://esxhostname/ui/#/login and the engine set as Modern. I still can not get it to autofill the credentials and I have tried several different methods. If anyone knows how to get it to do that properly please comment.

felix_deimel · October 31, 2018, 9:14am

@RMN IT:

We were previously able to reproduce the “stuck blue screen” issue but this seems to have been resolved in newer version of the HTML5 client.

Regarding auto fill:

There are two problems:

The VMware web client loads its login UI using JavaScript and it takes an unknown amount of time to appear. If you configure a high enough delay in the auto fill settings you can get the page to properly fill the HTML fields.
The VMware web client doesn’t allow login until it receives real(!) keypresses in both, the username and password fields. Unfortunately this cannot be simulated using JavaScript so even if you get the fields to properly auto fill you will not be able to click login. As a workaround you can enter a blank and immediately remove it in both fields. This will then enable the login button

wojciech_maslanka · June 3, 2019, 8:23pm

But tasks are still
invisible It is the biggest problem because it very important in daily
tasks.

felix_deimel · June 4, 2019, 8:46am

Hi Wojciech,

I don’t quite understand what you mean by “tasks are still invisible”. Could you please elaborate? A screenshot would probably also help.

thx,

felix