Re: [Widgets] Mozilla open apps

Hi there -

I can speak for the technical aspects of the Apps project and relay feedback as needed.

We had looked at the Widget Packaging spec earlier in the project and had steered away from it because we were focused on the "in-browser/live URL" use case.  But as we added icons, names, descriptions, and whatnot, we've converged back on something close to Widget Packaging.

So... I think, as you note, it's worth making the effort -- I propose that we try to figure out how to make the Widget spec fit our current use case, and, if it doesn't, see if we can find a small number of deltas that get us there.

I'll try to summarize the differences here:

In-Browser/"live content" usage
Our goal is to encompass "in-browser" application usage, where some subset of normal web browsing activity is identified as an "app".  

This means that we need to identify some subset of the URL value space that "belongs" to an app.  Our current approach (which is close to the one proposed by Google [1]) is to identify a URL set (Google allows regexes; we propose domain-matching with a path prefix).  Google proposes allowing a carve-out of "browsable URLs", which can be visited without leaving the app, presumably for federated login.

Specifically, this means that the content element would need to be replaced or augmented with some sort of app_urls or somesuch.  It also seems like the HTML5 App Cache proposal is addressing the same problem space as content; is there some way to harmonize all of this?  If we get this right we can perhaps get a smooth continuum from "live web site" to "dedicated brower instance" to "widget".

We also intend to experiment with embedding URLs for service endpoints -- for example, a cross-document postMessage sink.  I don't see an element that we could adopt for that purpose yet; perhaps we could propose an extension.

Per-application metadata repository and access API
We propose that the "application repository" maintain some metadata that is in addition to, and along side, the manifest.  Specifically, an authorization URL, signature, installation location and date, and perhaps an update URL.

The gist of our approach (and the part that is really new, I think) is that JavaScript running in some web context can ask, "has the user installed an app for my domain?"   And then, further, "if the user has an authorization URL for my domain, load it now".

You could try to use the Widget API for this, but the trust model isn't exactly right.  Our intent is that the user has a trust relationship with a store or directory, and has a less trusted relationship with the app; the app does not discover the authorization URL, for example.  In our thinking this implies that there is a "app repository" object that has a couple methods; AFAIK there isn't an equivalent object that has the "list of all installed widgets" in the spec.  Am I missing something?

XML vs. JSON
Cultural nit: many web developers have trouble with complex XML encodings.  It's frustrating, but true.  Would the specification of a JSON dialect be amenable, or is it that a non-starter?

Localization Model
The xml:lang based approach is structural analogous (though somewhat tedious to handle in JSON, but that's not really important).  In the absence of a content element, the folder-based localization strategy could hit some bumps.  Perhaps extending lang to a couple more elements would be sufficient - we are trying to fit into existing user-agent localization approaches, which might mean that we need to identify a different set of hostnames or launch URLs as well.

We can't mandate a folder-based localization model since we are trying to describe existing web content.

Widget features we can adopt 
I think name, description, author, license, icon, and feature are all straightforward enough.  Is the assumption that the value space of feature is going to be the W3C Permissions set [2], or something else?

(Prior warning: I apologize if I disappear from the list at short notice in a day or two; I have a new baby coming imminently)

[1] http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/docs/developers_guide.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-api-perms-20101005/

Best,
Mike
--
Michael Hanson, Mozilla Labs