Re: [manifest] Resolve start_url against manifest URL (#330)

The current manifest specification does not lend itself well to use by traditional app stores, but @jmajnert is right... the problem isn't that the manifest can't be hosted by the store (the store can can just index the manifest hosted by the app as the Firefox Marketplace does), it's that there's no installation API which an app store can use to trigger the installation of an app.

The current specification assumes that the user navigates to the web app and uses it first, then optionally installs it later from browser UI. Mozilla has a proprietary installation API [1] which is currently used by the Firefox Marketplace to install Firefox Apps, but for W3C web apps it will need to replace the "install" button with an "open" button. The user can open the app in the browser to use it instantly, then optionally install it to break it out of the browser and use it as a standalone app. As I understand it the Chrome implementation will use heuristics to determine when to prompt the user to install the app while they are using it in the browser.

So far it has been an intentional decision to not have an installation API in order to prevent install buttons popping up all over the web, but if there's an unfulfilled need that some implementers have then it would be great to hear about those use cases in more detail. If there's interest in standardising an installation API for example then I would suggest opening a new issue to discuss that so we can gather use cases.

1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMApplicationsRegistry/install



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