feat: provide an option to select chrome binary

[slurdge]

Sometimes the chrome binary cannot be found automagically by the the chrome library. This patch allows an user to manually select it. I tried to follow closely the style of the source & linted.

[privatenumber]

Ideally, the specific problem is addressed prior to fixing it so that:

• The problem is isolated, confirmed, and validated by peer-review
• Others experiencing it can also help document and debug
• The best solution and alternatives can be found

Currently, it sounds like you're experiencing a bug in https://github.com/GoogleChrome/chrome-launcher. Do you think you can document the bug there?

[slurdge]

Currently, it sounds like you're experiencing a bug in https://github.com/GoogleChrome/chrome-launcher. Do you think you can document the bug there?

Hello, I believe this is not a bug in chrome-launcher. They acknowledge that sometimes, the chrome binary cannot be found (for example, on my system it's not the default browser and not in the path). So they provided with an option to manually give the path of the binary. Some people are also using chromium, which can be difficult to find but has the functionality needed for it work.

Ideally, the specific problem is addressed prior to fixing it.

I agree, I just saw an easy fix and went for it. As it's an additional option, I thought it would be mostly benign.

An alternative (provided by the chrome-launcher library) is to specify an environment variable (CHROME_PATH). But IMHO this is harder for a new user to go from "Chrome cannot be found" to a working solution, as the command line will not help in this case.

[privatenumber]

A PR to improve their detection functionality that considers your case might be helpful too.

What do you think about documenting CHROME_PATH in the readme under FAQ, (and CLI help, maybe) first? If people are having trouble with it, adding first-class support for it might make more sense to me.

[slurdge]

What do you think about documenting CHROME_PATH in the readme under FAQ, (and CLI help, maybe) first? If people are having trouble with it, adding first-class support for it might make more sense to me.

Seems fine to me. I envision the most frequent scenario is someone like me, who runs the command with npx and gets an error message. Maybe we could fix it up like this when we catch the error:

    console.log('[snap-tweet] Error:', error.message);
    if (error.code === 'ERR_LAUNCHER_NOT_INSTALLED') {
        console.log('[snap-tweet] You can override Chrome binary path with the CHROME_PATH environment variable');
    }
    process.exit(1);

[privatenumber]

Sounds like a good solution!

Can the message be something like: [snap-tweet] Error: Chrome could not be automatically found! Manually pass in the Chrome binary path with the CHROME_PATH environment variable: CHROME_PATH=/path/to/chrome npx snap-tweet ...

[slurdge]

Yes. Do you want me to have another PR or will you include the message ? I don't mind either.

[privatenumber]

Yes, please work on it if you can.

Thank you so much!

[slurdge]

Done in another PR. I'll close this one.