Hi Steinar,

I’m pleased to see people doing work with Karaf and React, but it looks as 
though this is at least partly duplicating/rebuilding the existing 
functionality provided by the HTTP and JAX-RS whiteboard specifications. I’m 
thinking specifically:

>  Loads and serves up resources from the bundle classpath of the DS
>    component (typically index.html and bundle.js, but also CSS, font
>    files and images) 

This looks and sounds a lot like the ability to register resources using the 
HTTP whiteboard 
(https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.http.whiteboard.html#d0e121459
 
<https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.http.whiteboard.html#d0e121459>)

> 2. Sets Content-Type for the resources it serves

This looks a lot like the job performed by a ServletContextHelper (assuming you 
need to customise the defaults) 
(https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.http.whiteboard.html#service.http.whiteboard.servletcontext
 
<https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.http.whiteboard.html#service.http.whiteboard.servletcontext>)

> 1. Set a default package to where Jersey should scan for classes
>    implementing REST endpoints (subpackage ".resources" of the package
>    the DS component resides in) 
> 2. Provides a registration mechanism that can be used to pass injected
>    OSGi services to the HK2 dependency injection, so that the OSGi
>    services can be injected into the classes implementing REST
>    endpoints 


This looks and sounds like a more limited version of the JAX-RS whiteboard 
(https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.jaxrs.html 
<https://osgi.org/specification/osgi.cmpn/7.0.0/service.jaxrs.html>). Using the 
JAX-RS Whiteboard allows you to inject OSGi services into any component (you 
can provide your resources as services directly, or wrapped in an application), 
and you remain decoupled from the JAX-RS provider.


I’m all for simplifying the use of React frontends, but this approach seems to 
ignore most of the work that’s already been done to simplify the use of 
HTTP/REST in OSGi/Karaf. Would it not have made more sense to build examples on 
top of these existing structures. It would have been particularly nice to show 
how to set up these projects, and then add in a configuration for the “Frontend 
Servlet” to do the relevant path mapping for react routing (which sounds like a 
useful addition). As it is this project provides yet another different way to 
package your application bundles, and it's one that doesn’t fit with the rest 
of the advice/examples out in the world.

All the best,

Tim

> On 21 Mar 2020, at 07:56, Steinar Bang <s...@dod.no> wrote:
> 
> I have written two servlets that simplifies js frontend delivery and
> implementing jersey REST APIs in karaf.
> 
> The servlets are deployed to maven central and have been released under
> the Apache v2 license.
> 
> The servlets are intended as base classes for DS (Declarative Services)
> components implementing javax.Servlet OSGi services that will plug into
> the web whiteboard.
> 
> The FrontendServlet[1] does the following:
> 1. Loads and serves up resources from the bundle classpath of the DS
>    component (typically index.html and bundle.js, but also CSS, font
>    files and images) 
> 2. Sets Content-Type for the resources it serves
> 3. Has a list of paths that will serve up index.html to bootstrap the
>    web application, this is used to be able to reload URLs navigated to
>    by the react router[3] 
> 
> The JerseyServlet[2] does the following
> 1. Set a default package to where Jersey should scan for classes
>    implementing REST endpoints (subpackage ".resources" of the package
>    the DS component resides in) 
> 2. Provides a registration mechanism that can be used to pass injected
>    OSGi services to the HK2 dependency injection, so that the OSGi
>    services can be injected into the classes implementing REST
>    endpoints 
> 
> My demo applications have been updated to use these servlets:
> https://github.com/steinarb/frontend-karaf-demo/blob/master/src/main/java/no/priv/bang/demos/frontendkarafdemo/ReactServlet.java#L14
> https://github.com/steinarb/jersey-demo/blob/master/jerseyinkaraf.webapi/src/main/java/no/priv/bang/demos/jerseyinkaraf/webapi/CounterServiceServlet.java#L27
> 
> I've also written blog posts describing how to use the new servlets.
> https://steinar.bang.priv.no/2020/03/16/simplified-delivery-of-react-js-from-apache-karaf/
> https://steinar.bang.priv.no/2020/03/20/simplified-rest-apis-from-karaf-using-jersey/
> 
> References:
> [1] <https://github.com/steinarb/servlet#frontend>
> [2] <https://github.com/steinarb/servlet#jersey>
> [3] <https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/guides/quick-start>
> 

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