1274918 - How to get Firefox Web App in full screen mode now mozApps is desupported

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Richard Maher]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Try to call navigator.mozApps.checkInstalled or to install a Web App manifest


Actual results:

They have been desupported. The FAQ does not direct to Plan B for Full-Screen Web App experience.


Expected results:

Now that we can no longer install FireFox Web Apps on Android: - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Marketplace/API/DOMApplicationsRegistry/install

How can I achieve the full-screen Web App feel minus the browser chrome? "Pin to homescreen" still leaves the URL and tab-controls up there :-(

I understand that the Mozilla Marketplace is now dead but why can't we still load the manifest?

This was ALL useful stuff: -

{
  "name": "hypoCampus",
  "type": "web",
  "description": "hypoCampus Web App",
  "launch_path": "/civitas.html",
  "icons": {
    "128": "/icon1.png"
  },
  "permissions": {
    "geolocation": {
      "description": "Required to map your location"
      },
    "desktop-notification": {
      "description": "Required to receive hypoCampus notifications"
    }
  },
  "version": "1.0",
  "developer": {
    "name": "Richard Maher",
    "url": "http://a.b.c"
  },
  "default_locale": "en",
  "fullscreen": "true"
}

Comment 1

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to Richard Maher from comment #0)
> They have been desupported. The FAQ does not direct to Plan B for
> Full-Screen Web App experience.

Which FAQ are you referencing?  I'd be happy to update it to redirect readers to more information about plans for web apps in Firefox, including a fullscreen mode.


> How can I achieve the full-screen Web App feel minus the browser chrome?
> "Pin to homescreen" still leaves the URL and tab-controls up there :-(

At the moment, there isn't a way, but bug 1126479 requests support for the "display: fullscreen" mode of the Web App Manifest standard <https://www.w3.org/TR/appmanifest/>.


> I understand that the Mozilla Marketplace is now dead but why can't we still
> load the manifest?

I decided to disable the Web Runtime, which is the component responsible for using that manifest, in https://groups.google.com/d/topic/firefox-dev/WV2XkVN3sWQ/discussion, because the runtime wasn't viable due to lack of investment in its development and maintenance.  Read the discussion in that thread for the details.

Comment 2

[Richard Maher]

(In reply to Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez] from comment #1)
> (In reply to Richard Maher from comment #0)
> > They have been desupported. The FAQ does not direct to Plan B for
> > Full-Screen Web App experience.
> 
> Which FAQ are you referencing?  I'd be happy to update it to redirect
> readers to more information about plans for web apps in Firefox, including a
> fullscreen mode.

All MDN docs such as the following point to a "Future of Marketplace FAQ"
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Marketplace/API/DOMApplicationsRegistry/install

No mention of the future of Web Apps. Please provide a link here and/or update the FAQ.

> 
> 
> > How can I achieve the full-screen Web App feel minus the browser chrome?
> > "Pin to homescreen" still leaves the URL and tab-controls up there :-(
> 
> At the moment, there isn't a way, but bug 1126479 requests support for the
> "display: fullscreen" mode of the Web App Manifest standard
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/appmanifest/>.

Great news! Can you try to include more than just "fullscreen"? Please see all attributes above.

> 
> 
> > I understand that the Mozilla Marketplace is now dead but why can't we still
> > load the manifest?
> 
> I decided to disable the Web Runtime, which is the component responsible for
> using that manifest, in
> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/firefox-dev/WV2XkVN3sWQ/discussion,
> because the runtime wasn't viable due to lack of investment in its
> development and maintenance.  Read the discussion in that thread for the
> details.

Continuing the "great or dead, right?" theme from that thread, can you please tell me why Mozilla is persisting with the 3rd-rate push notification service Autopush? You are *never* going to compete in the Cloud Service Provider space with the likes of GCM Auzure Notification Hubs and Amazon so why do you continue to bleed money on the effort?

Comment 3

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to Richard Maher from comment #2)
> All MDN docs such as the following point to a "Future of Marketplace FAQ"
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Marketplace/API/
> DOMApplicationsRegistry/install
> 
> No mention of the future of Web Apps. Please provide a link here and/or
> update the FAQ.

Ok, I've updated that FAQ to describe Progressive Web Apps as an alternative to Marketplace and the runtimes.


> Great news! Can you try to include more than just "fullscreen"? Please see
> all attributes above.

I don't have insight into plans here beyond what I can glean from our bug database (in particular, the meta-bug tracking support for Progressive Web Apps in Fennec, bug 1212648), so I suggest filing bugs on Fennec (the "Firefox for Android" product) requesting these features.

You could also try posting to the mobile-firefox-dev discussion forum <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/#mobile-firefox-dev> with a request for more information about plans.


> Continuing the "great or dead, right?" theme from that thread, can you
> please tell me why Mozilla is persisting with the 3rd-rate push notification
> service Autopush? You are *never* going to compete in the Cloud Service
> Provider space with the likes of GCM Auzure Notification Hubs and Amazon so
> why do you continue to bleed money on the effort?

I'm unfamiliar with Autopush and the market category you describe, so I can't provide any insight into our plans for it.

Comment 4

[Richard Maher]

Thank-you