977866 - Simulator build of B2G 1.1 for app-manager

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Simulator, defect)

Description

[Soledad Penades [:sole] [:spenades]]

I don't know if this has been discussed already or if it's just technically unfeasible, but if we could have a simulator 1.1 build we could probably retire the "old simulator" and would make things so much easier for everyone :-)

Comment 1

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

Yes, I think everyone agrees that would be much simpler.  The main issue (assuming my memory is correct) is that the newer Dev Tools client-side code inside any recent Firefox is not backwards compatible with the server-side code that would be in a 1.1 simulator, so we opted to give up on it at the time.

I suppose may it be possible to construct a 1.1 simulator for App Manager that only lets you run and install apps without debugging... but that might also be even more confusing / not worth it.

Comment 2

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

Why do we need a 1.1 build to retire the old simulator?

Comment 3

[Soledad Penades [:sole] [:spenades]]

Because the old simulator is still used for 1.1 builds which is what people need to test on because currently sold devices are on 1.1 (sorry, so many causalities).

Comment 4

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Firefox OS 1.1 is based on gecko 18. Both devices and simulators are based on the same code, gecko 18, which doesn't include any b2g devtools support. The only thing it supports is app install and doesn't support unix socket. We can't get the list of installed apps, nor launch, nor have any tool (console, inspector,...) connected to an app. We can only blindly push an app.

At the time we shipped 1.1, I had patches, but it was rejected and we end up in this bad state against 1.1. Since then we just decided to suggest the old simulator addon with the few features it has for anything related to 1.0/1.1 versions. We tried to have some explicit warning about that in the doc:
  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Using_the_App_Manager

When I tried to get the patches landed for 1.1, we were told 1.1 would be quickly updated to newer version with train cycle and also, new versions are meant to have way bigger sales.

There is nothing we can do for devices. For simulator we could uplift necessary devtools features to gecko18 and build b2g desktop out of such branch, but that's all but easy at many stuff changed in devtools (moved to sdk modules) and dependencies will pull stuff from the JS engine.

I'm sorry to say, I tried to avoid this state, but it is too late.

Comment 5

[(not reading bugmail) Nick Desaulniers [:\n]]

> We can only blindly push an app.

I'd be fine with just that, as that use case is currently difficult from nightly.