document mycelium client OSX and Windows

[xmonader]

check with @maximevanhees
the goal is to document creating a vm with mycelium and using that mycelium client to be enable to connect to that machine

[Mik-TF]

There seems to be many ways to proceed. Here's a proposition:

• Show the basic steps to install mycelium on a VM running on the grid: basically a summary of https://manual.grid.tf/documentation/system_administrators/mycelium/mycelium_toc.html but adapted for VM

Is this sufficient? Do we want two guides: micro and full VMs?

So

• 1 Linux VM on the grid with mycelium (server) that can communicate with mycelium (client) installed on: MAC, Windows, Linux

[xmonader]

There's a desktop application developed/in the process of being developed by @maximevanhees . That's what needs to be integrated in the manuals (not duplicating content for sure)

[Mik-TF]

OK good! Then Maxime can communicate when its ready to be shared/added to the manual, and if there are repos in particular with any docs to work with.

[Mik-TF]

Notes

For now, Mycelium is sufficiently covered only for Linux: https://manual.grid.tf/documentation/system_administrators/mycelium/mycelium_toc.html

Once we have the client for OSX and Windows, we can update the Mycelium section (shared in the link above) with OSX and Windows.

[Mik-TF]

@maximevanhees

What is the status+ETA of the OSX + Windows client +docs? Just to get a pulse of the situation and plan forward. Thanks!

[maximevanhees]

@Mik-TF @xmonader

At this moment there is a branch (mycelium-ui) that uses Dioxus, a Rust GUI library, to create a "frontend" for Mycelium where user can lookup and search routes and view which peers they are connected to. At this moment the codebase is only tested on Linux. I'll test how it behaves on MacOS and Windows today, but normally this shouldn't be an issue as Dioxus says it is designed to be cross-platform by default. Note that this UI doesn't include the Mycelium binary itself, and thus users are still required to manually start Mycelium beforehand.

On another note: I've already created a Windows installer for Mycelium (using WiX) but it does not automatically start up as a background service yet. The goal here is to provide a more user-friendly experience for less technical users that want to run Mycelium. On Windows, we could package the binary and the GUI together (which would both get installed at once with the installer) providing a working out-of-the-box experience.

@despiegk also asked me to take a look at Flet.dev, a Python wrapper around Flutter (with some extra features) which aims to simplify the process of building a simple frontend for (exisiting) applications. I'm in the process of porting the Dioxus application to a Flet app, but I doubt how reliable it will be to deploy a Python codebase cross-platform (Linux, MacOS, Windows and mobile). At this moment there are still a couple of issues getting it to work properly.

[iwanbk]

also asked me to take a look at Flet.dev, a Python wrapper around Flutter (with some extra features) which aims to simplify the process of building a simple frontend for (exisiting) applications

@maximevanhees why we need to wrap Flutter with python?

[maximevanhees]

@iwanbk I was just briefly mentioning what a Flet app is, nothing more 😊

[Mik-TF]

@maximevanhees Hi! What is the status of this? Can we start to write the docs? Are there any docs started yet? Even if it's just some notes, it can help. Thanks.

[Mik-TF]

As I understand, we can soon start documenting the mycelium GUI as 3.15 is released tomorrow. @maximevanhees lmk

[maximevanhees]

@Mik-TF I'm not working on the GUI anymore, it has been handed over to @iwanbk. He will be able to give you an update.

[iwanbk]

Hi @Mik-TF
For Windows client, it is available on this release page https://github.com/threefoldtech/myceliumflut/releases
For osx: it is still in review on AppStore

I just released the iphone version to appstore few minutes ago, might need up to 24 hours to be publicly available

I actually submitted the macos version before the iphone one, not sure why the macos version take longer time.

[iwanbk]

FYI, the android one still on review on the Google PlayStore
Mostly about documents / paperwork :(

[Mik-TF]

OK good. Thanks for the update. Really appreciated.

When it's all done, please update this issue so we can work on the docs and I can help as much as possible.