User provided URL for launching Strudel sessions

[BriceChivu]

Hello,
First of all, thank you very much for having built this plugin. I'm having a lot of fun using it!
I'm not very knowledgeable in the technical aspects, so my apologies if my question is trivial.
As I'm often offline, I would find it very useful to be able to have nvim strudel plugin to launch a Strudel session locally, as opposed to Strudel.cc.
I tried to vibe-code my way into this but failed...
Is what I am describing even possible? If so, could you be kind enough to guide me, please?

Here is my /Users/brice/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/strudel.lua:

return {
  "gruvw/strudel.nvim",
  build = "npm install",
  config = function()
    require("strudel").setup({
      ui = {
        maximise_menu_panel = true,
        hide_menu_panel = false,
        hide_top_bar = false,
        hide_code_editor = false,
        hide_error_display = false,
      },
      update_on_save = false,
      sync_cursor = true,
      report_eval_errors = true,
      headless = false,
      browser_data_dir = "~/.cache/strudel-nvim/",
    })

    local strudel = require("strudel")

    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>sl", strudel.launch, { desc = "Launch Strudel" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>sq", strudel.quit, { desc = "Quit Strudel" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>st", strudel.toggle, { desc = "Strudel Toggle Play/Stop" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>su", strudel.update, { desc = "Strudel Update" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>ss", strudel.stop, { desc = "Strudel Stop Playback" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>sb", strudel.set_buffer, { desc = "Strudel set current buffer" })
    vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>sx", strudel.execute, { desc = "Strudel set current buffer and update" })
  end,
}

I have a local installation of Strudel and inside it I have "run-strudel.sh" (/Users/brice/Documents/strudel/run-strudel.sh):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
cd /Users/brice/Documents/strudel/website
pnpm preview --port 4321 --host 0.0.0.0

So running ~/Documents/strudel/run-strudel.sh spins up a Strudel session in http://localhost:4322/, which allows me to code and play music without internet connection. But I'm struggling to sync that session to nvim strudel plugin...

Let me know if other information is needed!
Thanks a ton in advance for your time

Cheers

[gruvw]

Hey there, thank you for showing interest into this plugin.

I agree with you that offline availability is an important feature, and luckily for us it appears to also be important for the Strudel team: https://strudel.cc/learn/pwa/

As the Strudel website is using PWA technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app), it allows this plugin to also be usable offline thanks to persisted browser cache.

From the README:

Session persistence & offline - Remembers browser state across sessions, which also means you can use it offline.

If for some reason :StrudelLaunch does not launch a functioning Strudel browser session when you are offline, then it's a bug with the plugin. Please let me know if that's the case. Note however that this has some limitations, the same as the ones already explained at https://strudel.cc/learn/pwa/ as it is using that exact feature.

In your issue, you also mention locally running Strudel, which would bring offline support one level further. I also agree that this would be a great idea, and it is in fact already in the project's roadmap:

strudel.nvim/docs/roadmap.md

Line 35 in a6b9752

- [ ] Don't depend on the `https://strudel.cc` website, host locally

Unfortunately, this is not a trivial task and I currently can't take the time to implement it. However, I do plan to implement it and support this feature in the future.

(Note however that this isn't the issue's focus. This issue is about having a user provided strudel website URL, either at the launch command, or at the config option level.)

Hopefully my response will help you understand this topic better :)

[gruvw]

Another note about providing a custom Strudel session URL as a plugin config option or even as a launch command argument: although that isn't hard to implement, I am not sure if I really want to support this, as I can see it being a major source of compatibility issues between different versions of the strudel website.

As with the current way things are implemented for this plugin to work, it depends highly on the exact state and current interface/implementation of the strudel website and won't generally just work for previous/past versions. Therefore, it is probably better to keep everyone using the plugin on the same exact version, either by having everyone use the current latest strudel.cc version (what we have currently), or by pinning the current compatible version in the plugin and running it locally (which is what I would like to do in the future, point in the roadmap).

If you believe otherwise, feel free to share your opinion below.

[BriceChivu]

Thank you for your detailed response!
It is clearer now.
For now, I'll simply make sure to run all needed sounds/samples once before going offline, and rely on the PWA.
Thanks for your time!