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_anomDiebolt_'s avatar
_anomDiebolt_
Qrew Elite
8 years ago

Yet More Scripting Options - Chrome Local Overrides

Good News QuickBase Scripters! There is yet another scripting option for fine tuning and customizing your QuickBase applications: Local Overrides

Local Overrides
Suppose you're editing some CSS or JavaScript in DevTools. You want to see how the page looks or behaves when you reload the page, but DevTools erases your changes when you reload. With Local Overrides, you can now instruct DevTools to override network requests and serve local resources on your filesystem instead.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/01/devtools#overrides

It was supposed to be released in Chrome 64 (which is out now) and is even advertised in the dev tools panel but apparently there was a snafu and the feature is delayed till Chrome 65.

But the feature is available in Chrome Canary which is at version 66 already.

Chrome Canary Download
Get on the bleeding edge of the web
https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/canary.html

I have not fully evaluated this feature yet and there is often some repackaging of new features between the Canary channel and the eventual release version.

Chrome DevTools: Edit production websites with Network Overrides
Use the experimental Network Overrides feature in Canary to map remote network resources to local filesystem resources.
https://umaar.com/dev-tips/162-network-overrides/

I am going to predict QuickBase developers are going to be all over this as they can make persisting local changes to the production release from any Chrome browser at version 65.  And guess what - you can do this too!
  • _anomDiebolt_'s avatar
    _anomDiebolt_
    Qrew Elite
    8 years ago
    So I played around with this feature using Chrome Canary and it is pretty sweet. It is like your own personal QuickBase Exploratorium where you can save a copy of any file QuickBase serves to your local disk and then edits to that local file are used in place of QuickBase's original file and the changes you make will persist over time until you turn off the Local Overfide feature with a checkbox.

    Here is a simple screenshot of me altering the QuickBase file common.packed.js and putting an alert into the top of the file:



    One nice feature is that you can use any IDE or Editor to edit your copy of QuickBase's file. You could even implement your own build tool chain as once the Local Override is setup Chrome creates a file watcher to incorporate the changed file whenever it detects a change.

    The Local Override feature will only apply to your version of  Chrome but it suggests a lot of use new cases we have never had before:
    • A user with only moderate CSS skills could explore styling changes to an application as feedback to QuickBase to correct a problem or suggest, demonstrate and share a new styling feature
    • A user with only moderate JavaScript skills could explore new behavior without interfering with other users