857860 - Wish: WebAPI for Remote Control Clients (controls on lock screen)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Device Interfaces, enhancement)

Description

[Mathias Panzenböck]

I wish there where an API for web apps that would let you put some controls onto the lock screen of an Android/Firefox OS device. In particular I would like to add media playback controls for my web based player: http://greattuneplayer.jit.su/

Android 4.2 has a lock screen widget feature and (more specific to my use case) even older Android version have a RemoteControlClient interface that exposes media playback functionality to the lock screen:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/RemoteControlClient.html

I don't feel up to the task to specify such an API, but I'd really like to use one. So I wish Mozilla would specify this as one of their proposed WebAPIs and implement it for Android and Firefox OS (and then I would wish Google and Apply would implement the same API... well, I can dream).

Slightly off topic: Actually I'd like this API also on the desktop. Under Linux it (a RemoteControlClient like API) should expose a mpris2 D-Bus API implementation. Then I could use a plasma widget I once wrote (http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/?content=144437) to assign the media keys of my keyboard to the playback controls of the web based music player. Again, dreaming.

Comment 1

[Mathias Panzenböck]

I hope it is correct to post a wishlist item here as an "enhancement". I just wanted this noted so that maybe someone at Mozilla that thinks about new APIs for web apps knows my use case.

Comment 2

[Kyle Machulis [:qdot] [:kmachulis] (INACTIVE)]

This now exists as the MediaSession API. https://wicg.github.io/mediasession/