Re: Updated charter proposal

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Robin Berjon <robin@berjon.com> wrote:
> > Hi Mounir,
> >
> > On Jun 4, 2012, at 15:37 , Mounir Lamouri wrote:
> >> When working on the Alarm API and other APIs (like Push Notification
> >> API), Jonas and I realized that we probably need an API that would start
> >> web apps when needed. For example, with the Alarm API, to make sure an
> >> alarm isn't missed, the app should be started when the application isn't
> >> running; with Web Intents, we might need something similar when the user
> >> picks an application that isn't running yet.
> >> It appears that using DOM events for that isn't working very well
> >> because the developer will have to know when the event will be sent
> >> during the startup process which isn't easy to define.
> >>
> >> More information about this API here:
> >>
> https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.webapi/browse_thread/thread/a3c6e4c31d04b663/
> >
> > What you describe fits rather comfortably I believe under the
> "Application API" in the charter. It can launch apps and talk to them.
> Making it possible for system apps to handle intents when registered for
> them is definitely part of the idea behind it.
>
> Yeah, I figured it would either end up as a mechanism for implementing
> the use cases for the Alarm API or the Applications API.  In
> principle, we should be describing the deliverables in terms of the
> use cases they address rather than the mechanisms they use to address
> them.
>

I mentioned this on another thread, but I also think that it's possible
that this will be handled under the execution environment rather than as a
specific API.  It seems likely that it's deeply tied into application
startup, lifetime, etc.  As has been mentioned, this underlying capability
seems to be needed for a number of disparate APIs (alarm, push, intents,
etc.).

Erik