Using custom backend endpoint instead of localhost

[andybuki]

Hi Johannes, I'm not familiar with typescript, that's why may be I wrong.
I took a look at your repository, where you call http://localhost:31337/api.
Is it better to call the server instead of a localhost?

[jbaiter]

I assume you're refering to this piece of code in pdiiif-web/src/main.ts?

pdiiif/pdiiif-web/src/main.ts

Lines 48 to 52 in 1ebc08e

	if (!apiEndpoint) {
	apiEndpoint = import.meta.env.DEV
	? 'http://localhost:31337/api'
	: `${window.location.toString().replace(/\/$/g, '')}/api`;
	}

This is just a default value for the address where the backend API is located (for generating the cover page and for the server-based fallback). You can simply override this by setting the PDIIIF_API_ENDPOINT environment variable during the build (import.meta.env is resolved at build time, see the vite docs here).

For example, to use https://example.com/pdiiif/api as the backend location:

cd pdiiif-web
PDIIIF_API_ENDPOINT=https://example.com/pdiiif/api pnpm run build

The resulting build in dist will then contact that address for cover pages and fallbacks.

The default values if the environment variable is not set is as follows:

• Development builds (i.e. with pnpm run dev) use http://localhost:31337/api, assuming pdiiif-api is running there
• Production builds (i.e. with pnpm run build) use the location where the app is hosted and append /api.

[andybuki]

Thanks a lot for the explanation.