Ionic deploy add command doesn't perform required configuration

[coffeymatt]

Description:

I've recently been fighting with my Ionic5/Angular/Capacitor app to try and get AppFlow working, but the tooling/documentation is lacking and it's been very difficult.

I've followed the quickstart guide: https://ionic.io/docs/appflow/quickstart/installation

The problem is, the 'ionic deploy add' command doesn't perform all the required configuration to make appflow work. This leads to a very frustrating experience where it's been very difficult to figure out what is missing to make things work and having to piece together things from forum posts like this one: https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/appflow-live-update-cant-make-it-work/185996/11

For Android, I had to add the following to 'strings.xml'

  <string name="ionic_max_versions">2</string>
  <string name="ionic_update_api">https://api.ionicjs.com</string>
  <string name="ionic_min_background_duration">30</string>

For iOS I've needed to amend info.plist:

<key>IonApi</key>
<string>$UPDATE_API</string>
<key>IonMaxVersions</key>
<string>$MAX_STORE</string>
<key>IonMinBackgroundDuration</key>
<string>$MIN_BACKGROUND_DURATION</string>

To hard coded values:

<key>IonApi</key>
<string>https://api.ionicjs.com</string>
<key>IonMaxVersions</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>IonMinBackgroundDuration</key>
<string>30</string>

I think the CLI command needs to be updated so that it checks these values are set, or that the $ variables that are meant to be substituted in here are set some where. I believe with cordova these would maybe be in config.xml and/or package.json but with Capacitor I don't think this is the case, or at least if it is, the 'ionic deploy add' command should take care of it.

I have to say, the troubleshooting link in the docs is next to useless, it just leads here: https://ionic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

I would be a paying AppFlow subscriber months ago were it not for the fight to get this working. I've filled in the contact form a couple of times to see if someone from your sales team would get back to me about getting up n running on AppFlow, no one has. You've got two different prices listed on the site for the growth tier, $102 and $120, but without your sales team getting back to me, I can't work out which is correct to raise a P/O anyway.

Seriously, if you want to sell this, you need to support people who are trying to get it working, keep an eye on the forum and stack overflow and help people, get this working more smoothly. And contact people back who interested.

Steps to Reproduce:

Output:

Please see my forum post here for details of the error messages I get without performing the configuration above:

https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/live-updates-simply-not-appearing-on-device/203223

My ionic info:

Ionic:

   Ionic CLI                     : 6.12.3 (C:\Users\PaulMatthew\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\@ionic\cli)
   Ionic Framework               : @ionic/angular 5.5.2
   @angular-devkit/build-angular : 0.1002.0
   @angular-devkit/schematics    : 10.2.0
   @angular/cli                  : 10.2.0
   @ionic/angular-toolkit        : 2.3.3

Capacitor:

   Capacitor CLI   : 2.4.6
   @capacitor/core : 2.4.6

Cordova:

   Cordova CLI       : 10.0.0
   Cordova Platforms : none
   Cordova Plugins   : no whitelisted plugins (0 plugins total)

Utility:

   cordova-res : not installed
   native-run  : not installed

System:

   Android SDK Tools : 26.1.1 (C:\Users\PaulMatthew\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk)
   NodeJS            : v14.15.4 (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe)
   npm               : 6.14.10
   OS                : Windows 10

Other Information:
https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/live-updates-simply-not-appearing-on-device/203223

[giocalitri]

@coffeymatt thanks for reporting this issue.
I just cut a release with the fix: it is in 6.12.4