Diff wrapper isn't working

[liammulh]

For phetsims/qa#501.

The Problem

If you paste https://phet-dev.colorado.edu/html/states-of-matter/1.2.0-dev.4/phet-io/ (the wrapper landing page) in and hit compare, you get:

"New sim: https://phet-dev.colorado.edu/html/states-of-matter/1.2.0-dev.4/phet-io/states-of-matter_all_phet-io.html?postMessageOnError"

but it should say something about finding 0 differences.

Source of Confusion

@KatieWoe and I are confused as to why this line exists in the diff wrapper:

"The URL can be the wrapper landing page (the simulation/version/ directory), the simulation HTML file, or the phet-io.js lib file."

If you paste in https://phet-dev.colorado.edu/html/states-of-matter/1.2.0-dev.4/, and hit compare, you get nothing. Should this be changed to:

"The URL can be the wrapper landing page (the simulation/version/phet-io/ directory), the simulation HTML file, or the phet-io.js lib file."?

[KatieWoe]

Also, are the html file and phet-io.js lib file accurate? This was not something we were instructed to test when this was last discussed, but it looks like it should be.

[chrisklus]

In https://github.com/phetsims/phet-io/issues/1648 we turned off generation of the phet-io API file on build because it was causing problems, and there's no longer an existing API file because we stopped checking those in. So when the sim is built, it currently has no way to get an api file (note the 404 when you click the "PhET-iO API JSON" link at the bottom of the wrapper index).

So I don't think there is any reason to support or test the diff wrapper for the time being. Sorry for the confusion!

@samreid or @zepumph please comment if you have any other thoughts.

[jbphet]

@samreid - you marked the priority for this as 'high' and left it assigned to me, but I'm not clear what I should do about it. From @chrisklus's comment above, it sounds like we should just ignore this problem and close the issue. True?

[samreid]

In https://github.com/phetsims/phet-io/issues/1648 and https://github.com/phetsims/phet-io/issues/1664 we will need to re-enable API file generation to unblock publication.

[zepumph]

I wanted to also tag #280, as this is basically the same issue (no api files on build right now).

[jbphet]

@arouinfar and I reviewed this on 5/29/2020 in an effort to identify issues that need to be resolved prior to making an early customer dev release. When reading through the description, it sounds like this issue would need to be resolved prior to such a release, yet it is marked as unassigned and on-hold. @samreid or @zepumph - can you update this to make it clear whether we can publish to a customer prior to resolving this (and why)?

[jbphet]

I've marked this as high priority so that it gets seen and responded to. If it's really a non-issue for publication, feel free to modify that level.

[samreid]

This blocks publication for an RC or production, but will not be used for a client dev release.

[zepumph]

@KatieWoe can you please confirm this is fixed in phetsims/qa#505

[zepumph]

"The URL can be the wrapper landing page (the simulation/version/phet-io/ directory), the simulation HTML file, or the phet-io.js lib file."?

@muedli, sorry these instructions are not set up for dev versions. They are for published phet-io versions, in which simulation/version/ would be the root (what phet-io/ is for dev versions). Sorry for the confusion during dev testing.

[KatieWoe]

It does seem to be working in phetsims/qa#505. Tested with wrapper index url

[zepumph]

Thanks! I'm going to close this issue then.