928030 - Add light event simulator to the App Manager

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(DevTools Graveyard :: WebIDE, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Joshua Smith [:joshua-s]]

It would be really helpful to those developers who do not have devices if we could integrate a method of testing light events into the simulator.

Comment 1

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

Can you provide a concrete example where you would use this? How exactly does your app use these light events?

Also, feel free to file other bugs for similar events in other WebAPIs.

Comment 2

[Joshua Smith [:joshua-s]]

(In reply to Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) from comment #1)
> Can you provide a concrete example where you would use this? How exactly
> does your app use these light events?
> 
> Also, feel free to file other bugs for similar events in other WebAPIs.

For instance, my app (https://github.com/Codexa/Firetext) has a special "Night Mode" that is activated when the surrounding light level goes down.  I have a device now, but my co-developers have to guess on everything dealing with it because there is currently no way to test a light event on the simulator.

Basically, I am thinking of a panel in the App Manager where you could simulate different APIs.  E.g. change the ambient light value, send/receive a fake text or call, change device orientation, simulate the phone's accelerometer, and the list goes on!

Comment 3

[Jeff Griffiths (:canuckistani) (:⚡︎)]

(In reply to Joshua Smith [:joshua-s] from comment #2)
...
> Basically, I am thinking of a panel in the App Manager where you could
> simulate different APIs.  E.g. change the ambient light value, send/receive
> a fake text or call, change device orientation, simulate the phone's
> accelerometer, and the list goes on!

Thanks for the feedback!

Luckily we're planning on building something quite a bit like that. Where it gets complicated is we need to work through:

 - what apis do most developers use
 - what apis are possible / easy  / hard to 'fake-out' or provide access to

An example of this: only certified apps currently can access the camera, so developers making packaged apps or hosted apps would not currently benefit from access there.

Wrt the accelerometer, what types of things in apps do you see this api being used for?

Comment 4

[Joshua Smith [:joshua-s]]

> Wrt the accelerometer, what types of things in apps do you see this api
> being used for?

Well, a large use case for the accelerometer would be games.  There are a lot of games (e.g. Temple Run) that would use this.

Other ways apps could use it is to count steps (Pedometer), or highlight the constellations based on the orientation of your phone (Star Walk).  There are probably a lot more use cases as well, but I am not creative right now...

Is there already an accelerometer API?  Or should I file a bug for that (don't want to take this bug off-topic).

Comment 5

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Apps are gone now.