Wanted future Windows features

community
1

Per @debergalis’s request in the 1.1 announcement blog post, though I’d get the party started on future features for Windows/Microsoft ecosystem.

Looking ahead, we are eyeing integrations with Visual Studio (which recently added better JavaScript support), Azure, and other key parts of the Microsoft ecosystem. Please let us know on the Meteor forums what you’d most like to see.

  • Support for Azure
  • Creation of PowerShell module vs traditional command shell
    PS> Create-NewMeteorApp [-Name] MyApp
    etc.

The reason I suggest a PowerShell module is because that’s where MS and 3rd party vendors are putting their focus. PowerShell is increasingly becoming the way you interact with apps, servers (IIS, SQL, SharePoint, Exchange, etc.), and the OS. Not to mention Azure.

If you want Meteor to deploy to Azure you’ll be doing it with PowerShell.

Congrats to all the people that have worked on the Windows release, especially @sashko and @slava.

2

@Giraffeslacks, thanks for the ideas! Some questions:

  1. What does support for Azure mean? Can you currently host normal Node.js apps there? If so, can you use the directions here: http://docs.meteor.com/#/full/deploying
  2. Is it possible for someone to create a PowerShell wrapper for the current command line API? What does it take to export a thing as a PowerShell module?
3

Hi

I am sorry, but I do not understand what you are looking for. Do you just want to replace the meteor.bat (suggestion: should be named meteor.cmd) with a PowerShell meteor.ps1 command file?

Or do you expect more from a meteor Windows Powershell Module?

Thanks for some more specification.
Tom

4

First of all I should set some expectations for the crowd. :sweat_smile: I’m by no means an expert on these things.

  1. I mean meteor deploy --azure or something like it. Yes, Azure does support Node.js: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/develop/nodejs/. Another possible advantage with Azure is its secure key store: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/key-vault/. This would be one alternative to environment variables as they are generally used within Meteor.
  2. I really wish I could answer that question for you properly but from what I know a simple wrapper would not do the trick. (I am sooo going to embarrass myself here but…) PowerShell utilizes objects and does not parse text from stdout so when you pipe one command to another they can “understand” each other because of it. PowerShell also has an opinionated way of constructing cmdlets (naming, output, documentation, etc.) so it makes discoverability very easy. See here for a rundown: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2013/11/06/a-powershell-object-lesson-part-2.aspx

If it weren’t already obvious, I’m really not a programmer. I’m an IT nerd. I don’t know how to accomplish these things with code but I can imagine what the tooling would look like.

5

Hi!

Please see my earlier response to @sashko for some more information but to answer your question that sounds like “wrapper” idea @sashko mentioned. Yes, the PowerShell Module page you referenced.
Referring back to #1 in my earlier post, using PowerShell the command(s) might be like:

PS> Get-MeteorApp -Name MyApp | Deploy-MeteorApp -Destination <azure endpoint> -Credentials <myusername>
PS> Enter password: _

These are just some far out ideas that would need to be thought about a lot and I definitely recognize these would be a big undertaking.

6

It was not about technic I asked for, I wanted to know what functions do expect from a power shell module. Just to imagine what the effort might be.

7

Good to know. Did my example help?

8

Yes, thanks. I think this is an easy part to do this way. It is a bit like having bash_completion and some shell-scripts

9

What I’d like most to see for Windows is support for mobile development for Android.

There are already great IDEs for Windows (WebStorm), so an integration with Visual Studio won’t bring that much value. On the other hand, mobile development on Windows doesn’t work at all.

So my vote for the next Meteor Windows feature is - mobile development.

4 Likes
10

I agree. Mobile development support is very important, followed by Azure deployment. Especially mobile development is a big problem for me right now. I’m sort of stuck, what I’ve tried so far simply didn’t work, so an official Windows version would be great.

Also, deploying to Azure is a pain in the ass. Again, you need to use linux to get it done.