[Question] Are there plans for replicating Vale Server's functionality in Vale CLI?

[theletterf]

With the deprecation of Vale Server, all who were relying on Vale Server and the Vale extension for Chrome are left without options if they want to continue using Vale for linting. Short of building alternatives, what are the plans for moving some or all of those features to Vale CLI (as mentioned in the vale-server tracker before it's gone), and how can we help?

[jdkato]

It’s possible that I will revisit the browser extension idea at some point, but I don’t have a timeline.

[theletterf]

Would this be possible without a server middleware? Perhaps by leveraging Chrome's native messaging API? https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/nativeMessaging/

[jdkato]

Yeah, that's an option for sure.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably look into WebAssembly, though.

[ChrisChinchilla]

I'm speaking at the moment to a Webassembly SaaS about doing a demo for them and was thinking about trying Vale, I am not sure if it's beyond my Go knowledge, but I might have a quick try…

[jdkato]

The browser extensions will likely return with the release of Vale v3.0.0 (#688). The key change will be support for a default (global) Vale configuration that they can use.

[astratagem]

What actually happened to Vale Server? I haven't found any info as to why it was deprecated, especially since all links to its repo are now dead, including issue tracker tickets intended to provide context.

For others wondering what happened to Vale Server, I managed to find this explanation in http://web.archive.org/web/20221204061541/https://github.com/errata-ai/vale-server/issues/93, originally posted by @jdkato on 2022-06-23:

I've decided to discontinue development on Vale Server. With the addition of packages to the Vale CLI, most of its features (see #81) are no longer relevant.

This doesn't come as a surprise; my intent with v2.0.0 was always to re-think its implementation and features to better accommodate the modern Vale CLI. Unfortunately, this effort has fallen short of my expectations — I simply don't have the time required to maintain effectively an entirely separate project (and the current status isn’t exactly great, #92).

There are still a lot of Vale-related improvements and features in the works, but I’m going to be consolidating my focus on the CLI.

As a new Vale user, I was wondering whether Vale had some sort of browser extension support/integration (along the lines of #397), but found that the info trail went cold pretty quickly despite some search results:

• I searched the documentation site for "browser", and clicked on the top result called "Browser Integration", which links directly to Browser Integration #97
• From there, the only clue about what happened next is a link to the (now-gone) vale-server repo in Browser Integration #97 (comment)
• Through a GitHub search, I also found https://github.com/vishalbelsare/vale-server, but there's no more info there. It only says "please see #93 for an update on the project", which is a broken link.
• I then found an archived version of that project update in the Wayback Machine (see the beginning of my comment).

[astratagem]

If it wasn't obvious: I would love to see a browser extension! Though I totally understand the reasoning for abandoning Vale Server.

[astratagem]

I wonder if using a browser extension that provides an browser-embedded Vim or Emacs (e.g. <glacambre/firenvim>) could serve as a complicated substitute…

[ChrisChinchilla]

So… Some of us have been looking at working from a fork, or maybe rearchitecting in WASM, but it's going to be reasonable work either way, so can't promise anything. Some features are already in CLI and might also make it, but the in-browser or app features can't be handled by the CLI tool.

[jdkato]

@ChrisChinchilla: have you made any progress here? Just checking because I'm considering looking into this again.

I feel like the second version of the Chrome extension got a lot right from a privacy/functionality standpoint ... just need to make it work without the server component.

[ChrisChinchilla]

@jdkato I haven't started any coding, but been thinking about a new approach actually. I've been using Grammarly desktop a little recently and thinking about trying a similar approach to the one they take, which is system-wide monitoring of all text fields. Something like this is very flexible, but of course, you'd need a different client for every operating system.

Either way, as your idea is quite different, I don't really see any issue with offering different options for people.

[bitsondatadev]

@jdkato, would it be possible to post a link to this discussion thread on the website? I spent about an hour looking for what happened and why Vale Server repo was no longer there. Thanks! Not sure if I missed something. Thanks @montchr for the info!