How To: Integrate Firebase for Web & Native

[sean-perkins]

Demonstrate how to integrate Firebase for both Web and NativeScript.

[JaserAkuly]

@sean-perkins do you think we could use OpaqueToken to put this together? I have been researching a lot about this and the problem I have come across is that there is a UI difference between the Web and Nativescript codebase. Along with the UI, both of the plugins have different API touchpoints so that also requires us to have a different function, rather than sharing that, so I.E. updating a user profile, on the web we would just call firebase.push function and pass in that data. If I am correct, using the Nativescript Firebase plugin its different function, so how could we align that? Please correct me if I am wrong or I am not visible to a completely different issue at hand. These are just some thoughts I have collected together during the research.

[sean-perkins]

@JaserAkuly the implementation strategy that I was envisioning was:

• Creating a custom FirebaseModule inside the project
• Create two services firebase.service.ts and firebase.service.tns.ts
• Create a shared interface between the services to drive a consistent call signature firebase.common.ts.

Then in each service, amend the call signatures around the interface. Slurp in the module/service into your feature modules and utilize a common service between your web/native code.

In this strategy, I would most likely have the NativeScript service extend the call signatures of the web service. The reason why is the web project is maintained and determined by Google; the NativeScript plugin is an opinionated implementation, while encompassing the native Pods/Libraries; there could be still naming schema differences and/or functional differences.

Pros of implementation:

• Clean implementation within your feature layer (all components leverage the same service and call signatures)
• Strict control over functionality (i.e. you can amend native-only functionality into the .service.tns.ts and have a throws ("Not Implemented") in web).

Cons of implementation:

• Requires maintaining implementation strategy, especially as the plugin and the web libraries are updated/changed.

Although the con also currently exists with the NativeScript plugin anyways.

I've tested this implementation strategy within our own NS + NGX app, with web cookies/sessions and NativeScript's app settings. It's a flawless implementation that provides a cohesive service to maintain both.

The goal of this task would most likely be creating another library that accomplishes what is mentioned above, as it doesn't make sense for each user to have to maintain their own versions of this.

[chrishaff]

Did this stall or is it in another repo somewhere?