Re: [manifest] V1 ready for wider review

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 5:21 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Marcos Caceres <marcos@marcosc.com>
> wrote:
> > The editors of the [manifest] spec have now closed all substantive
> issues for  "v1".
> >
> > The spec defines the following:
> >
> > * A link relationship for manifests (so they can be used with <link
> rel="manifest">).
> >
> > * A standard file name for a manifest resource
> ("/.well-known/manifest.json"). Works the same as "/favicon.ico" for when
> <link rel=manifest> is missing.
> >
> > * The ability to point to a "start-url".
> >
> > * Basic screen orientation hinting for when launching a web app.
> >
> > * Launch the app in different display modes: fullscreen, minimal-ui,
> open in browser, etc.
> >
> > * A way of for scripts to check if the application was launched from a
> bookmark (i.e., similar to Safari's navigator.standalone).
> >
> > * requestBookmark(), which is a way for a top-level document to request
> it be bookmarked by the user. To not piss-off users, requires explicit user
> action to actually work. Expect <button>install my app</button> everywhere
> on the Web now :)
> >
> > If you are wondering where some missing feature is, it's probably slated
> for [v2]. The reason v1 is so small is that it's all we could get agreement
> on amongst implementers (it's a small set, but it's a good set to kick
> things off and get us moving... and it's a small spec, so easy to quickly
> read over).
> >
> > We would appreciate your feedback on this set of features - please file
> [bugs] on GitHub. We know it doesn't fully realize *the dream* of
> installable web apps - but it gets us a few steps closer.
> >
> > If we don't get any significant objections, we will request to
> transition to LC in a week or so.
>
> I still think that leaving out name and icons from a manifest about
> bookmarks is a big mistake. I just made my case here
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2014Feb/0039.html
>
> Basically I think we need to make the manifest more self sufficient. I
> think that we're getting Ruby's postulate the wrong way around by
> making the file that describes the bookmark not contain all the data
> about the bookmark. Instead the two most important pieces about the
> bookmark, name and icons, will live in a completely separate HTML
> file, often with no way to find yourself from the manifest to that
> separate HTML file.


I agree. I further think that the marginal utility in bookmarking something
to the homescreen (sorry, yes, I'm focusing on mobile first) is low if it
doesn't have a Service Worker / Appcache associated. It's strictly
second-class-citizen territory to have "web bookmarks" that routinely don't
do anything meaningful when offline.