Command Line / External Tools for Apps

People

• J. Ryan Stinnett (DevTools)
• Alex Poirot (DevTools)
• Rodrigo Silveira (Apps Engineering)
• Matt MacPherson (Apps Engineering)
• Rory Petty (Apps Engineering)
• Fred Wenzel (Apps Engineering manager)
• Christopher Van (Marketplace)
• Jennifer Fong (Apps Engineering)
• Jukka Jylänki (Emscripten)
• Les Orchard (Apps Engineering (was MDN))

Outcome of Discussion

Principles

• Mozilla teams see low value in creating "another" CLI tool for app developers
  • Many web / app developers already have a favorite (Grunt / Gulp) if they know how to use CLI tools today
• Would be better to start by improving integration within existing toolchains

Active Work

• To support complex build steps (like Cordova, Grunt, Gulp, etc.):
  • WebIDE should offer a pre-push hook to call a build command
  • The command to call could be defined in some file at the project root
  • App DevTools team is working on this in Q3 2014

Future Plans

• Cordova and other CLI tools should have a way to push apps
  • A small Node tool could be made that just does this, so it can be done in a headless (non-GUI) way
• Cordova and other CLI tools should have a way to trigger debugging
  • Best path forward here seems to be fixing the Mac issue with Paul's WebIDE CLI
• To support additional goals, like app validation or submission:
  • Short Term: Standalone tools (like from Marketplace team) are a good solution
  • Long Term: Extend WebIDE's available actions with shared JS code
• There is interest in standalone CLI tools to support CI testing environments, but not seen as needed for a primary workflow
  • May only need a subset here, like validation only

Existing Tools (or in development)

• ffdb.py (Emscripten: Jukka Jylänki)
  • Push apps to simulator or device
  • Various other utils: memory, prefs, etc.
  • No interaction with WebIDE
  • Python, self-contained
• WebIDE CLI (DevTools: Paul Rouget)
  • Blocked for now: Does not work on Mac (bug 1020739)
  • Open apps in WebIDE
  • Push apps to simulator or device
  • Debug apps on simulator or device
  • Part of Firefox / WebIDE binary
• Cordova FxOS support (Apps Engineering: Rodrigo Silveira)
  • Adds support to Cordova for FxOS APIs
  • Short term goal: Push apps to simulator or device
  • Long term goal: Debug apps via WebIDE
  • Node.js
• firefox-webapp (Marketplace: Christopher Van)
  • Manifest validation
  • Future goal: Submission to Marketplace
  • Node.js
• firefox-client (DevTools: Heather Arthur, Alex Poirot)
  • Connect to DevTools servers, like b2g devices or simulators
  • Generic tool, not specific to apps
  • Node.js
• python-fxdevtools (DevTools: Dave Camp)
  • Same as firefox-client above, but in Python
• recroom (Apps Engineering: Matt MacPherson)
  • Leveraging grunt and other node tools (yeoman)
    • AppManager / WebIDE could look at grunt file and display tasks (ala xcode)
  • Looking to consume, not write another toolchain
  • Some API from WebIDE build apps for deploying
  • push to simulator, push to device
  • maybe even publish to Marketplace
  • "standard" workflow elements that WebIDE provides
• marionette (QA)
  • Uses same transport-layer code from DevTools, otherwise unrelated to DT
  • Various testing frameworks use this to connect to devices, etc.