Re: WebApp installation via the browser

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 2:06 AM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:

> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 5:40 PM, Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Are there any platforms providing the feature? Has the feature gained
> > any traction among the platform vendors?
>
> The webapps platform that we use in FirefoxOS and Firefox Desktop
> allows any website to be an app store. I *think*, though I'm not 100%
> sure, that this works in Firefox for Android as well.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "side loaded", but we're definitely
> trying to allow normal websites to provide the same experience as the
> firefox marketplace. The user doesn't have to turn on any "developer
> mode" or otherwise do anything otherwise "special" to use such a
> marketplace. The user simply needs to browse to the website/webstore
> and start using it.
>
> The manifest spec that is being developed in this WG is the first step
> towards standardizing the same capability set. It doesn't yet have the
> concept of an "app store", instead any website can self-host itself as
> an app.
>

The Chrome team is excited about this direction and is collaborating on the
manifest format in order to help make aspects of this real. In particular
we're excited to see a Service Worker entry added to the format in a future
version as well as controls for window decorations and exit extents.


> It's not clear to me if there's interest from other browser vendors
> for allowing websites to act as app stores, for now we're focusing the
> standard on simpler use cases.


I can only speak for the Chrome team, but the idea of a page as an
app-store seems less important than the concept of the page *as* an app.