(Christian heilman) firefox

FIREFOX OS

Fulfilling the promises of HTML5

Christian Heilmann (@codepo8)
DEVIEW 2013, Seoul, Korea.

When the iPhone reinvented the phone and shook the foundations of the mobile space one of the
promises was that there is "no SDK" and that HTML5 as the Flash successor will enable developers
to benefit from the web as a distribution platform and get access to the all hardware parts that
make a phone fun. This promise is now kept by Firefox OS, an operating system targeted at
emerging and existing markets that is written in HTML5 and gives HTML5 all the power it
deserves. In this session Chris Heilmann of Mozilla shows how easy it is to build engaging apps
using HTML5 and benefit from the simple distribution model that is the web. You'll learn how to
reach new audiences and re-use what you create in closed environments.

BENEFITS OF HTML5
★

In-built distribution - the web

★

Simple technologies used by lots of
developers

★

Evolution of existing practices

★

Open, independent, standardised

Let’s quickly recap what HTML5 promised us as a platform. In essence it was
an evolution of the web, taking advantage of its distributed nature and
extending its reach into hardware.

PROMISES OF HTML5

This was also the dream of Steve Jobs when the iPhone ﬁrst came out. It was
a revolution, re-inventing the phone to be web-based rather than a closed
environment. No SDK required - just build like you build for the web.

LOCKOUT

In reality, things look different now. The browsers that come hard-wired with
mobile operating systems are very much falling behind when it comes to
their HTML5 support and developers have to resort to writing native apps.

FIREFOX OS

Firefox OS wants to change that. It is an open operating system based on
HTML5.

SOME FACTS…
★

Released in four countries: Spain, Poland, Venezuela and
Columbia (more to come very soon)

★

18 mobile operator partners, 6 hardware partners

★

Hardware options: Alcatel One Touch Fire, ZTE Open,
Geeksphone Keon, Geeksphone Peak…

★

Aimed at emerging markets/low end market

★

Aimed to be an alternative to feature phones and
unavailable closed environments.

★

Open source - it is all on GitHub

Firefox OS is not a test, it is not an idea. It is already very real.

"Movistar oﬀers the
ZTE Open for €69,
including €30 of
balance for prepaid
customers and a
4GB microSD card"

Firefox OS devices are extremely aﬀordable and aimed at people who have not
yet access to the web on the go.

ARCHITECTURE
Third Party HTML5 Apps
GAIA
Web APIs / Web Actitivies
Gecko rendering engine
Linux/Gonk (ADB enabled)
The architecture is simple, we build on top of the Gonk layer of Android (why
reinvent and open architecture) and added the Gecko rendering engine. On
top of that we have Web APIs and Activities, GAIA, the UI of Firefox OS and
third party HTML5 apps.

In essence it is Android without the Java.

+

=

PREDICTABLE HTML5 SUPPORT

The browser support for HTML5 is a given as it is the same engine as Firefox
on Desktop uses.

SECURITY
Security is a big issue when it comes to HTML5. The web as it is now is
suffering from some massive security holes which is why we can not allow
any JavaScript on the web to access for example the camera of your phone.

APPLICATION MANIFEST
{
"version": "1.0",
"name": "MozillaBall",
"description": "Exciting Open Web development action!",
"icons": {
"16": "/img/icon-16.png",
"48": "/img/icon-48.png",
"128": "/img/icon-128.png"
},
"developer": {
"name": "Mozilla Labs",
"url": "http://mozillalabs.com"
},
"installs_allowed_from": ["*"],
"appcache_path": "/cache.manifest",
"locales": {
"es": {
"description": "¡Acción abierta emocionante del desarrollo del Web!",
"developer": {
"url": "http://es.mozillalabs.com/"
}
}
},
"default_locale": "en"
}

HTML5 apps need to have a manifest ﬁle to be Firefox OS apps. In this one
you deﬁne what your app is, but also what kind of hardware access it needs.

APPLICATIONS
Web Content

Privileged Web App

Regular web content

More access, more
responsibility

Installed Web App

Certiﬁed Web App

A regular web app

Device-critical
applications

There are four kind of apps in Firefox OS - ranging from simple web content
to fully trusted apps that have access to all the hardware.

APPLICATIONS

The app permissions are deﬁned in detail on the Mozilla Wiki.

PERMISSIONS
"permissions": {
"contacts": {
"description": "Required for autocompletion in the share screen",
"access": "readcreate"
},
"alarms": {
"description": "Required to schedule notifications"
}
}

You need to declare all the permissions you want in your manifest ﬁle.

WEB APIS
Web APIs are standards proposals and agreements with the W3C to enable
JavaScript to access hardware and sensors of devices.

WEB APIS (FOR ALL)
Vibration API (W3C)

Web Activities

Screen Orientation

Push Notifications API

Geolocation API

WebFM API

Mouse Lock API (W3C)

WebPayment

Open WebApps

IndexedDB (W3C)

Network Information API (W3C)

Ambient light sensor

Battery Status API (W3C)

Proximity sensor

Alarm API

Notification

These are a few of the APIs defined with the standards bodies to allow you
access to more than the screen. Some of the are enabled across browsers,
all of them in Firefox OS for any web content.

BATTERY STATUS
API

The battery status API allows you to read the current state of the battery. This
is very useful to build apps that warn the user before losing data.

BATTERY STATUS API
var battery = navigator.battery;
if (battery) {
var batteryLevel = Math.round(battery.level * 100) + "%",
charging = (battery.charging)? "" : "not ",
chargingTime = parseInt(battery.chargingTime / 60, 10),
dischargingTime = parseInt(battery.dischargingTime / 60, 10);
// Set events
battery.addEventListener("levelchange", setStatus, false);
battery.addEventListener("chargingchange", setStatus, false);
battery.addEventListener("chargingtimechange", setStatus, false);
battery.addEventListener("dischargingtimechange", setStatus, false);
}

You have various properties and events to listen to - this works across APIs.

SCREEN
ORIENTATION API

The screen orientation API allows you to lock the orientation of your app.

SCREEN ORIENTATION API
// Portrait mode:
screen.mozLockOrientation("portrait");
/*
Possible values:
"landscape"
"portrait"
"landscape-primary"
"landscape-secondary"
"portrait-primary"
"portrait-secondary"
*/

VIBRATION API

The vibration API allows you to make a phone vibrate.

VIBRATION API
// Vibrate for one second
navigator.vibrate(1000);
// Vibration pattern [vibrationTime, pause,…]
navigator.vibrate([200, 100, 200, 100]);
// Vibrate for 5 seconds
// Turn off vibration

NETWORK
INFORMATION API

The Network Information API tells you what the connection is and if it is
metered or not. This helps your users not to spend too much money on
downloads and defer upgrades to when they are connected to WiFi.

NETWORK INFORMATION API

var connection = window.navigator.mozConnection,
online = connection.bandwidth > 0,
metered = connection.metered;

☼

AMBIENT LIGHT
EVENTS

The ambient light API allows you to detect if it is dark or light around the
device and switch design accordingly.

AMBIENT LIGHT EVENTS

window.addEventListener("devicelight", function (event) {
// The level of the ambient light in lux
// The lux values for "dim" typically begin below 50,
// and the values for "bright" begin above 10000
console.log(event.value);
});

PAGE VISIBILITY

The page visibility API tells you if the app is currently open and used or the
user has another one in focus.

PAGE VISIBILITY
document.addEventListener("visibilitychange", function () {
if (document.hidden) {
console.log("App is hidden");
}
else {
console.log("App has focus");
}
});

WEB APIS (PRIVILEGED APPS)
Device Storage API
Browser API
TCP Socket API
Contacts API
systemXHR

Privileged apps are those that went through a review by the Mozilla security
team and thus get more access to the hardware.

CONTACTS API

For example, privileged apps can create new contacts on the ﬂy.

CONTACTS API
var contact = new mozContact();
contact.init({name: "Tom"});
var request = navigator.mozContacts.save(contact);
request.onsuccess = function() {
console.log("Success");
};
request.onerror = function() {
console.log("Error")
};

WEB APIS (CERTIFIED APPS)
WebTelephony

WebBluetooth

WebSMS

Permissions API

Idle API

Network Stats API

Settings API

Camera API

Power Management API

Time/Clock API

Mobile Connection API

Attention screen

WiFi Information API

Voicemail

Certiﬁed applications are the ones built by Mozilla and partners. These
needed APIs to access all the hardware.

CERTIFIED APPS = THE OS :)

We used these to build all the apps that make up the operating system.

CERTIFIED APPS = THE OS :)
Dialer

Alarm Clock

Contacts

Camera

Settings

Notes

SMS

First Run Experience

Web browser

Notiﬁcations

Gallery

Home Screen

Video Player

Mozilla Marketplace

Music Player

System Updater

E-mail (POP, IMAP)

Localization Support

Calendar
Like these.

WEB
ACTIVITIES
Web activities are a way to get access to the hardware without going through
a review process of your app. Instead of accessing the hardware directly,
the user will access it for you.

You can for example ask for a photo and the user then picks from their
gallery or takes a photo with the app of their choice. They then return
automatically to your app with the photo as a ﬁle blob.

GET A PHOTO?
var getphoto = new MozActivity({
name: "pick",
data: {
type: ["image/png", "image/jpeg"], "image/jpg"]
}
});
getphoto.onsuccess = function () {
var img = document.createElement("img");
if (this.result.blob.type.indexOf("image") != -1) {
img.src = window.URL.createObjectURL(this.result.blob);
}
};
getphoto.onerror = function () { // error
};

FIREFOX OS + ANDROID!

Activities allow for an app ecosystem on the device. You can ask the user to
become the app to do certain tasks and defer to other apps instead of
doing everything yourself. They also work on Android when you install
Firefox.

APP
DISTRIBUTION
App distribution on Firefox OS works in two ways: as a marketplace and by
distributing directly on the web using then Open Web Apps API.

FIREFOX OS MARKETPLACE

https://marketplace.ﬁrefox.com/
The marketplace works like any other out there: submit your app, get found,
get rich.

INSTALL FROM THE WEB…

var installapp = navigator.mozApps.install(manifestURL);
installapp.onsuccess = function(data) {
// App is installed
};
installapp.onerror = function() {
// App wasn't installed, info is in
// installapp.error.name
};

You can also re-use already existing web fame by adding a “install app”
button anywhere on the web calling this JavaScript. This means your SEO
efforts of the last years were not in vain.

DYNAMIC APP WEB SEARCH

Firefox OS has a unique way to search apps. Instead of just searching by
name and description, the search scans the web for apps and links them to
the intent of the user. For example a search for a band would ﬁnd music
apps.

DEVELOPMENT
ENVIRONMENT
The big question about HTML5 is always about the development environment.
Firefox OS has no SDK or IDE, but we built a few tools to get you started faster

FIREFOX OS
BOILERPLATE APP

https://github.com/robnyman/Firefox-OS-Boilerplate-App
The Boilerplate App is a great way to start with Web Activities. In it you have
stub code for all activities and you can just comment out what you don’t
need.

FIREFOX OS SIMULATOR

https://addons.mozilla.org/ﬁrefox/addon/ﬁrefox-os-simulator/
The Simulator is and add-on for Firefox that runs a virtual phone on your
desktop, complete with debugging tools and the option to send apps from
the simulator to a real device.

PROTOTYPING WITH JSFIDDLE
1. Write your code as a JSFiddle
2. Append /webapp.manifest to your Fiddle
URL and paste this link into the Firefox OS
simulator to install the app
3. Alternatively, append /fxos.html to your
Fiddle URL to get an install page like a
typical Firefox OS hosted application

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/08/using-jsﬁddle-to-prototype-ﬁrefox-os-apps/
JSFiddle is not only a great way to try out some functionality or ask for help
reviewing it - now it also features a way to make any code in it installable
as an application in the simulator or on a device.

BUILDING
BLOCKS?
Many people ask us for building blocks like the iOS ones. We don’t want to
stiﬂe people in their creativity and there is no “one” Firefox OS look and
feel - there are guidelines - but here are some ideas.

CERTIFIED APPS BUILDING BLOCKS

http://buildingfirefoxos.com/
The creation of the OS-internal apps has been documented and all the
widgets used in their creation are available at buildingﬁrefoxos.com.

CERTIFIED APPS BUILDING BLOCKS

http://buildingfirefoxos.com/
This is a great resource to get inspiration for your own apps.

MOZILLA BRICK

http://mozilla.github.io/brick/
Mozilla Brick is a library to allow you to build apps from web components.
The beneﬁt here is that your apps will perform much, much better and you
don’t need to write behaviour yourself.

WHAT’S
COOKING?
That’s a lot. But there is more around the corner.

MORE WEB APIS…
Resource lock API

Spellcheck API

UDP Datagram Socket API

LogAPI

Peer to Peer API

Keyboard/IME API

WebNFC

WebRTC

WebUSB

FileHandle API

HTTP-cache API

Sync API

Calendar API

We constantly extend the offering of Web APIs as we ﬁnd new needs.

APPMAKER!
Resource lock API

Spellcheck API

UDP Datagram Socket API

LogAPI

Peer to Peer API

Keyboard/IME API

WebNFC

WebRTC

WebUSB

FileHandle API

HTTP-cache API

Sync API

Calendar API

Mozilla Appmaker is a WYSIWYG editor for apps that will allow beginners to
click together a Firefox OS app from Web Components.

RESOURCES
Where can you go if you want to learn more?

DEVELOPER HUB

https://marketplace.firefox.com/developers/
The developer hub is the one-stop-shop for Firefox OS. You ﬁnd design
guidelines, demo apps and learn how to build and publish your apps.

MOZILLA DEVELOPER BLOG

https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/ﬁrefox-os/
The Mozilla hacks blog is our technical blog with lots of posts about new and
exciting features in Firefox and the OS.

FIREFOX OS VIDEO SERIES

https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/videoseries/
We’ve recorded a series of short video interviews showing the different parts
of Firefox OS. All of those are on YouTube.

FIREFOX OS WIKI

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS
Last but not least, there is the Firefox OS wiki with all the in-depth technical
information.

THANKS!

CHRIS HEILMANN
@CODEPO8

(Christian heilman) firefox

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