Party can't start if `ipfs daemon` is already running elsewhere

[jamiew]

Generally just fails to initialize

New to ipfs, but I'd assume it should try to connect to an existing daemon? Or just try a different port?

[victorb]

I would suggest two things. First is to isolate the daemon that Partyshare uses and starts by default. You'll need to set IPFS_PATH to whatever local directory the user have for data associated to the application. That directory you can get with app.getPath('userData') (from orbit-electron: https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-electron/blob/c86504b0f7465ee2ff5cac9be8b78e23018ef9d1/config/orbit.config.js#L24)

Secondly is to set the ports to something that is not the defaults in IPFS (Swarm - 4001, Gateway - 8080 and API 5001) so it won't collide. You can probably turn off the gateway as well, AFAIK, you're not using the gateway.

Also, I would provide the user with a way of configuring Partyshare to not start it's own daemon and reuse the existing one, but it shouldn't happen by default.

[bhstahl]

Great suggestions @VictorBjelkholm, much appreciated. Breaking up the second task into a separate tickets (#18, #19) and keeping this ticket for the configuration when users already have a ipfs repo to select, and decide whether to start the daemon.

Thanks for starting the issue @jamiew!

[bhstahl]

Strategy for closing out this ticket is as follows:

• [ ] Build a ui element for settings
• [ ] In settings, allow users to select a location for their repo, overriding the current IPFS_REPO
• [ ] In settings, have a checkbox (defaulting to checked) for whether Partyshare starts a daemon