I just tried to switch over from ExtendScript to UXP development.
There’s one fact that’s very much dissatisfying me: Development can not be done without being connected to the Cloud.
I don’t want to be forced to share anything I do with anyone. Nor do I want to be connected to the Internet all the time while I’m developing.
Moreover, a number of professional development environments (e.g. banking and insurance company software departments) disallow developing on machines that are connected to the Internet due to the elevated privileges these development machines have. We are working in dedicated Citrix VMs then without any Internet connection.
To me, not being able to fully develop while being offline is a serious privacy infringement and security loophole.
Please, provide means to safely and comprehensively develop locally and disconnected.
UXP Developer needs to be online for the first time so that the Developer Terms of Use and authentication is done. After a successful first time login you should be able to use the Tool in offline mode post that.
Are you not able to do this? Can you ensure that you are logged in once.
This came up at Office Hours last week, too. @gregbenz in particular complained that he can’t develop on airplanes or trains where the internet connection is unstable because of a perceived connectivity requirement with the tools. At least one other developer confirmed this.
It also fails randomly (at startup) when there is connectivity. It will report that it cannot connect, even though the connection is fine. Trying to launch UDT several times will often (not always) get around this.
And I continue to get reports that plugins that have been installed by non-Marketplace .ccx files are also unavailable when there is no internet connection. A member of my camera club just mentioned this last night that my plugins, which they installed via .ccx, were missing when they visited a location w/o internet connectivity. My plugins do NOT require an internet connection to work, so there’s no reason in the code why they should fail when there is no internet connectivity. When the camera club member had an internet connection again, his plugins came back. So, there’s definitely something going on here that shouldn’t be happening or is not documented as to why it is happening.