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Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

hacks.mozilla.org

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Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#21

Post by jchrisa »

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

I second that. For mobile the key is to focus on responsiveness not glitz. People open your app for a reason, and hopefully the reason isn't your CSS animations.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#22

Post by nrc »

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

I think you underestimate what can be done with bad hardware if the motivation is there - FirefoxOS phones are really bottom end hardware and the UI (app opening, or changing screens, for example) is built using CSS transitions etc. They are just as smooth as native transitions on much more powerful hardware. With a good implementation and a good understanding of exactly when you hit the fast path optimisations you can do wonders.

The problem is not with web technology, but with the implementation and use of web technology. Of course, since this is mostly out of the hands of app developers, this doesn't help much. But I think it is important to be blaming the right culprits.

(Hopefully we are not too far off bringing these optimisations to Firefox on Android at least, for now they exist only for Firefox OS).

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#23

Post by frik »

Jare wrote: post #20
Mikeb85 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have Android Chrome, open this. Super smooth on Nexus 5 and Chrome... http://helloracer.com/racer-s/

There's very little processing power needed for that demo, outside access to the GPU via WebGL for rendering. It's a completely different model from HTML/CSS. And WebGL will not be available for Android WebViews (or iOS ones for that matter) for quite a while yet.

It's sad, Google and Apple try protect their walled garden app-stores by all means.

Android 4.4+ are based on Chrome/blink for the WebView but they deactivated the hardware acceleration for Canvas2D and removed WebGL support, as well as Web Audio API. [1]

iOS 4+ support WebGL in the webkit engine, but it's only enabled for iAds. [2]

[1] http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/1915-android-44-kitkat-in...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL and the related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7265230

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#24

Post by andybak »

frik wrote: post #23
Jare wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's very little processing power needed for that demo, outside access to the GPU via WebGL for rendering. It's a completely different model from HTML/CSS. And WebGL will not be available for Android WebViews (or iOS ones for that matter) for quite a while yet.

It's sad, Google and Apple try protect their walled garden app-stores by all means. Android 4.4+ are based on Chrome/blink for the WebView but they deactivated the hardware acceleration for Canvas2D and removed WebGL support, as well as Web Audio API. [1] iOS 4+ support WebGL in the webkit engine, but it's only enabled for iAds. [2] [1] http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/1915-android-44-kitkat-in... [2] http://en.wik…

I don't quite see the argument here. To quote from your link:

> Chrome for Android supports a few features which aren't enabled in the WebView, including:

If Google was trying to protect the app-store walled-garden - surely that would mean the reverse? Currently in-browser games that bypass the appstore completely have access to more features than native apps?

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#25

Post by frik »

andybak wrote: post #24
frik wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad, Google and Apple try protect their walled garden app-stores by all means. Android 4.4+ are based on Chrome/blink for the WebView but they deactivated the hardware acceleration for Canvas2D and removed WebGL support, as well as Web Audio API. [1] iOS 4+ support WebGL in the webkit engine, but it's only enabled for iAds. [2] [1] http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/1915-android-44-kitkat-in... [2] http://en.wik…

I don't quite see the argument here. To quote from your link: > Chrome for Android supports a few features which aren't enabled in the WebView, including: If Google was trying to protect the app-store walled-garden - surely that would mean the reverse? Currently in-browser games that bypass the appstore completely have access to more features than native apps?

Both companies cripple HTML5 support on their mobile OS. Developers are left with almost no choice but to write native apps for their platform (if they care about execution speed).

It fits perfectly in the picture that Apple doesn't allow alternative browser engines. Chrome for iOS just embeds UIWebView and there is no Firefox for the same reason. The JavaScript JIT is disabled for UIWebView, and only enabled for Safari.app.

In an ideal world, one could write powerful HTML5 apps that run on Android, iOS, FirefoxOS and desktop browsers. And AppsStores would allow one to add an entry to the apps web URL or at least provide an non-crippled WebView so that one can write a simple wrapper app (or use phonegap/etc).

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#26

Post by Pacabel »

zalun wrote: post #13
thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

I really don't buy the "web is native on Firefox OS" argument that you and others make.

Architecturally, it's really no different than a PhoneGap or web app running on Android, iOS or BlackBerry OS. They all involve an "app" typically written with HTML+JavaScript, executed in a web browser (often full-screen and without chrome), which in turn runs on an operating system of some sort.

If it's "native" on Firefox OS, then why isn't it just as "native" on Android, or iOS, or BlackBerry OS, or other mobile OSes?

What I think we really see is Firefox OS totally lacking any sort of real native software development support. This creates the illusion that web apps are somehow "native", when this is just a result of there being no other viable option.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#27

Post by romanovcode »

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

I second that. We had to build pretty simple application for iOS and Android and all the swipes and buttons that were animated via css were horribly laggy.

Not to mention you have so little control over device itself, only thing you can do is rely on Cordova plugins (which are horrible to begin with).

Never again.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#28

Post by pjmlp »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #15
thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

If you have Android Chrome, open this. Super smooth on Nexus 5 and Chrome... http://helloracer.com/racer-s/

Sure, because everyone has a Nexus 5.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#29

Post by lmorchard »

Pacabel wrote: post #26
zalun wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

I really don't buy the "web is native on Firefox OS" argument that you and others make. Architecturally, it's really no different than a PhoneGap or web app running on Android, iOS or BlackBerry OS. They all involve an "app" typically written with HTML+JavaScript, executed in a web browser (often full-screen and without chrome), which in turn runs on an operating system of some sort. If it's "native" on Firefox OS, t…

Web as native on Firefox OS is not an argument or an illusion. Seriously, no kidding, it's the entire point for the existence of Firefox OS.

There will never be access to run native binaries on a Firefox OS device. Web APIs are as close to bare metal that it will ever expose.

Seeing that as "totally lacking any sort of real native software development support" misses the whole purpose of the OS, because the web is native on Firefox OS.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#30

Post by lmorchard »

camus2 wrote: post #16
zalun wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

you mean javascript is native on Firefox OS. Firefox OS api =/= web standards.

As far as I'm aware, the intent is to develop any non-standard Firefox OS API into a web standard API. Any API that starts out as non-standard on FxOS, starts that way so that it can be shaped to serve practical uses before it gets standardized.
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