[Pas2js] We need help !

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2019, Mr Bee via Pas2js wrote:

> My huge thank goes to 2 people who working on pas2js. I suppose they are Mattias and Michael. Thank you very much for your great and hard work. pas2js is something I've wanted since I knew Morfik.
> You don't need to worry about spreading the word. Everytime pas2js announces something interesting and significant, I've always been helping promote it everywhere on the internet. I promote it in my local pascal facebook group, in my local pascal telegram group, in my social media accounts, etc.
> However, pas2js is still very new and under heavy development. For an end user like me, it's quite hard to keeping track of what's going on. I'd like to help but I don't know what I've to do and how to do it. So, for now I just keep watching and playing around with the demos.
> I plan to create the classical Graph unit for pas2js based on HTML's canvas, but I still couldn't work on it due to my daily work (plus some of my other hobbies). If I have enough knowledges, I also would like to create CRT unit so we could create a console app that works on browser such as this: https://swift.beejay.repl.run
> Just a little suggestion about future of pas2js. Most developers today think mobile first, even when they're making web apps. I hope pas2js seriously consider this need and provide a solution immediately.

We consider this need. However, we can do only so much.


> Make pas2js beginner friendly, the first thing is to make it something that is easy to install (straight forward installer, no dependency to external tools such as fpc or lazarus, default config that just works) and easy to use (includes some instruction to use in various editors such as vs code, notepad++, etc; technical documentation that can only be provided by pas2js authors such as available units and classes, pas2js languages and syntaxes, pas2js vs pascal comparation such as with fpc or delphi, importing external js tools and frameworks, etc).
> If it's easy to install and used, the next step is to make it easy to develop something (either simple web app, canvas web app, "console" web app, and most importantly mobile web app). They're the main barriers for new users. Once it's provided, users will able to help provide examples and demos, tutorials, even documentations.

This is a bit of a catch-22 situation:

You say we'll get help when we do all these things.
But we need this help exactly to get all these things done...

What do you think is needed to make the installer even more user-friendly ? 
I suspect that for windows, an actual installer would be nice.

This can easily be provided. I am familiar with Inno setup, I'll see what I
can do there.

For the Atom editor, there is a package for pascal. 
It would be nice if it contained support for
a) pas2js compilation
b) creating Atom packages in Pascal.
I will contact the maintainer.

I don't use (or want to use) VS code, so someone else will need to check how
it can be made to interact with pas2js.

Michael.