pio build process and npm

[ksjh]

After pulling git commit 00e026c, WLED-MM did not build successfully in VSCode due to WEB_BUILD_TIME being undefined in wled_server.cpp. After looking into the modified code, I noticed I have to run npm run build manually. This fixed the problem, but the documentation states that the build process should do this automatically. I did not dig deeper into the details and do not know if this is still expected to happen automatically or not.

[softhack007]

Hi @ksjh,
Thanks for the hint, yes git commit 00e026c includes a back-port from upstream to improve webUI refreshing, and it introduces a change in in the format of pre-compiled html pages (wled00/html_*.h) that requires a one-time manual rebuild by running npm run build.
Alternatively, you can just delete the old generated html.h files, and the build process will recognize the files are missing and then re-generate them.

It is a one-time thing that only happens when you update your branch from mdev and then re-compile after receiving this particular commit. Besides the one-time manual rebuild of UI header files, it might be necessary to clear you web browser cache (<ctrl>+<F5>) once because old cache files might lead to spurious javascript errors in the WLED-MM webUI and wled app.

Edit: the webUI rebuild script should actually not only compare the timestamp of generated files vs. files in data/, but also compare if the generation script (tools/cdata.js) is newer. I'm not so very good at python scripting, but I'll keep it in my toDo-list that a newer data.js should also lead to webUI files being re-generated. @netmindz maybe you can help?

[netmindz]

Python isn't a language I know sorry, but copilot can most likely tackle this small tweak