Apps

The Open Web apps project aims to bring the best aspects of installed applications to the Web. This page contains links to documents, repos, and blog posts that are part of the project.

Overview Documentation

• Product Overview - a high-level description of the product and design pieces
• WebRT - a discussion of what a Web Runtime must do
• Marketplace - Mozilla's Marketplace for app discovery, distribution, and monetization
• MDN docs - MDN page with Apps Documentation
• Apps QA - QA activities to test the Web Apps platform
• Security Reviews - Security reviews for the Apps project
• Market Place Project Plan - Scope of current and upcoming releases of Marketplace
• Marketplace Developer App Submission - Developer submission page for submitting apps to the marketplace
• UserStories - a living list of user stories, prioritized for upcoming releases

Meetings

Marketplace

• What: Engineering and UX discussions related to the Mozilla Marketplace
• When: Mondays 10:30 - 11:00 AM pacific
• Where: Mt. View 3A, Public - see Notes page below for how to dial in.
• Meeting Notes

Apps product delivery

• What: Cross functional meeting to track upcoming Apps releases
• When: Tuesdays 1:00 - 1:30 PM pacific
• Where: Mt. View 2C, Public - see Notes page below for how to dial in.
• Meeting Notes

Apps Engineering - WebRT, WebAPI, Dashboard, Apps in the Cloud

• What: status updates for engineering efforts other than Marketplace
• When: Tuesdays 9:00 - 9:45 AM PT (16:00 - 16:45 UTC)
• Where: multiple locations, public - see meeting page for how to attend
• Meeting Notes

Show and Tells

• What: Weekly demos of various Apps projects
• When: Fridays Noon - 1:00 PM pacific
• Where: Mt. View Warp Core, Public - Vidyo: "Warp Core" - see Notes page below for how to dial in.
• Meeting Notes

IRC Chat and Mailing Lists

IRC: #openwebapps

Mailing Lists:

• dev-webapps@lists.mozilla.org - Web Apps Development Mailing List
• mozilla-apps@googlegroups.com - Mailing list for general interest, questions, reporting bugs, etc

Important References

"Authenticated Application" Idea Explorations

• Providing a one-click launch experience would be really nice, but we want to do it in a distributed and privacy-protecting way - one approach would be to use the Verified Email Protocol developed in the Identity project.

"Service Integration" Idea Explorations

• Using Web Applications for Service Discovery - blog post by mhanson on how apps can power service integration
• openwebapps-aboutme repo - an app that just provides a "personal profile" service
• openwebapps-flickr-connector repo - an app that connects to Flickr for photo save and retrieval
• openwebapps-photosite-connector repo - a more generic app that connects to multiple photosites for save and retrieve

What is a Mozilla Marketplace App?

• Defining Mozilla Marketplace Apps

QA References

• WebRT Bugs - All WebRT web apps bugs in bugzilla
• Web Apps Integration Into Desktop Test Plan
• OWA Extension and Soup Builds - Builds of the OWA extension and Soup
• OWA Extension Bugs - Bug query for the Apps extension bugs. Some of these bugs will likely be migrated to the Web Apps Integration into Desktop feature.
• March 1st OWA Extension Test Run - The results of the latest test run against the extension
• Extension and Apps Questions - Common questions and answers on the extension and apps
• Web Apps Desktop Test Cases - Test cases document used for the web apps integration into desktop feature

Other References

• Open Web Apps GitHub Repository - contains documentation, including architecture notes and "install" API. Also a Firefox addon that implements the API and a pure-HMTL/JS site that implements the API.
• Soup Releases - Major tagged releases of Soup
• Apps site - an overview of the technology ideas
• Sample App Directory - Sample apps you can install
• Dashboard Spec - Dashboard specification for web apps
• Web Activities - Web Activities documentation for Apps
• Apps in the Cloud - The specification for the next version of sync for apps

Outdated References

• WebRT Testing Setup and Runs - Outdated documentation for setting up and running test cases in the WebRT infrastructure
• OWA Extension Test Plan - QA documentation for testing the web apps extension for testing, using the product, etc. A good amount of the testing on the OWA extension will likely apply to the desktop-version of the feature on firefox.
• OWA Extension Test Cases - Test cases used in the past for testing the OWA extension. Some of these will likely be used in testing the desktop feature
• Q/A Extension and Apps - Questions and Answers on the Extension and Apps
• App Sync - Specification for understanding sync in the cloud for Apps

Help Wanted

Positions we need to fill for Apps (hiring manager):

• HTML5 Apps Partner Engineer (Kev Needham)
• Android Developer, Apps (?)
• Apps Partner Marketing Manager (?)
• User Experience Designer, Apps (Bryan Clark)
• Automation Developer, HTML5 Apps (Bob Moss)
• Project Manager, Apps

Parking Lot - Things to Do

• write design guidelines for making a killer app
• create sdk app
• write app review guidelines
• reframe what an app is so devs are confident in their submissions
• design a "get it on the Mozilla Marketplace" button
• design visual element on icon to show that these apps run everywhere