This is an overview of the roadmap for the Advanced Rest Client for next few months - up to a year.
Note, that this document is fluid and the change depends on users feedback and the environment.
Most of the planned function are described on issue tracker. New function has additional design doc label. You are welcome to shape the app with your own ideas and with discussing existing ideas with the author.
This is a high priority task. Projects as they are right in the app will be removed. New kind of projects - based on the RAML 1.0 spec - will take their place.
As for now projects were a set of not related requests that the user would like to bound together. Google Analytics showed that projects usage is at 18%. It's a lot but the potential in using standardized notation is huge.
The launch bug is #509
The project will be consisted with reusable web components. Each element will have its own repository and the app itself will be a responsible for connecting web component's logic and theming.
In other words, each component of the app (like URL editor, headers editor or response status viewer) will have it's own git repository managed by Bower dependency management system. Other apps can use as many components as they require as long as it fit the license requirements.
That leads to...
Soon ARC will be dual licensed. For all open source and freeware projects the license will not change. However commercial or not open source project will be able to use the components as long as they put information about the source of the components used in their projects.
The magic variables was described in details in my blog posts: https://restforchrome.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/introduce-magic-variables.html.
New variables will gain ability to work in projects only (scoped variables) or globally. Besides app defined variables user will have an option to declare his own variables (both scoped and global).
New magic variables will comes with the expressions. It's a very basic scripting environment where the user will be able to define simple action like concatenation, adding or multiplying. It will use basic string and math function to define an action and the result of the action will be placed in the request like magic variables does.
- Support for combined variables
- Add user defined variables UI
- Add enviornment support similar to Magic Variables
More about scripting environment in the design doc: Create a scripting environment
Basically, it is a system of creating and executing macros in the context of the request. It will use a JavaScript syntax to write a macro and a visual editor to execute macros in context of a request.
The app is collecting history of the user interaction with different endpoint. Based on this information the app can locally scan for project definition (RAML definition) and reverse engineer the API structure from it. Then the app can suggest creation of the project and document the API. Next time when the user will hit the endpoint the app suggest the parameters available for the endpoint and types of the expected response.
Having support for RAML specification the app can do much more in terms of supporting the UI. Request panel will have new UI for projects with documentation presented inline with the parameters forms. New autofill will use types definition to pre-fill parameters. See the prototype for more details. Select left menu and then RAML request.
Integration with external tools and platforms including, but not limited to:
- Android
- Chromecast
- Web snippets to run the ARC from a web page button
- Chrome / FF extension to that supports popular API provider web pages to add a "Run with ARC" button
- Chrome DevTools integration
Because of Chrome Apps deprecation the app will be moved to native platforms and Chrome extension. Chrome extensions has different API and use of app will be limited. Read more in this blog post: https://restforchrome.blogspot.com/2016/09/beyond-chrome-apps-arc-as-native-app.html
For native clients (with socket support) the app will introduce the request debugger. A tool similar to JavaScript debugger in Chrome Dev Tools where you can set a breakpoint and pause the execution of code but for the request. In this debugger user will be able to to set breakpoint at set points of the request, alter parameters and continue the request. It will give advanced tool to manipulate the request during the execution and allow to use this mechanism in other app's planned features like request series described in this ticket.
This is the plan for coming months for planned features. The plan may change depending on product development progress and changed in the environment. This project is and will be open to any suggestions. Please, file an issue report and ask for a feature to be implemented.
ARC also is looking for a team members ready to develop new features and make the API tooling better. Contact me via issue tracker or any other Channel.