How to turn (gaia) system apps to chrome://?

B2G OS Code
#1

I’m confused how to turn gaia apps to chrome:// In my case, i want to
turn the clock app which is one of the basic things for a smart phone.
Can anyone please explain how to do it or point me to the related
topic.

Regards,
Sai Karthik Karra
Twitter: kskarthik91

1 Like
#2

Don’t turn it into chrome… For what reason does it need to be chrome?

#3

Agreed, can you figure out how to make the clock work as a web app? Let’s figure out what’s missing to make that work and come up with a solution. We shouldn’t be looking to make all of the apps into chrome.

#4

If the clock app doesn’t need any certified API, there’s no need to turn it into chrome, right ?

#5

It does need certified permissions

#6

It requires certified permissions, but why? Maybe for the mozAlarm API? This is what you need to investigate: what justifies this level of permissions and how can we tackle it maybe?

1 Like
#7

what justifies this level of permissions and how can we tackle it maybe?

And that’s a good question, because I don’t see a reason to have the clock as a privileged app that you can’t change.

#8 
"permissions": {
    "themeable":{},
    "alarms":{},
    "settings":{ "access": "readwrite" },
    "attention":{},
    "audio-channel-alarm":{},
    "moz-extremely-unstable-and-will-change-webcomponents":{}
}
  • themeable - We should remove this one.
  • settings - Can the clock store its own settings in IndexedDB or localstorage? The alternative might be to turn the Settings API into a web service on localhost which has much wider implications.
  • moz-extremely-unstable-and-will-change-webcomponents - this will go away.
  • attention - This allows the clock to show an attention window which covers all other windows. Can we live without this and make do with some kind of notification, or do we need an alternative to this window.open extension?
  • audio-channel-alarm - Gabriele is working on simplifying the audio channel code but currently the alarm channel requires a privileged app. How can we make sure alarm sound gets through?
  • alarms - This uses the Alarm API which depends on System Messages which are going away. There was a proposal for a Task Scheduler API based on Service Workers but currently that is not being pursued. I can imagine a hacky solution using push notifications with a local web service, but we need to consider the risk for abuse of that service and/or come up with an alternative.

There is already a clock in chrome in the status bar :slight_smile: Before adding any more clock-related features to the chrome we should consider whether we could do those things with the web, and if not why not. You could certainly build a stopwatch and a timer using the web, are alarms an important use case for the web for which there are currently missing features? What’s the webby way to fix that?

#9

attention - This allows the clock to show an attention window which
covers all other windows. Can we live without this and make do with some
kind of notification, or do we need an alternative to this window.open
extension?

Well, we could live we just a notification + sound, but it will not be really handy.

You could certainly build a stopwatch and a timer using the web

Sure.

are alarms an important use case for the web for which there are currently missing features? What’s the webby way to fix that?

I’ve no answer on this topic, but as a user I think being able to replace the base alarm app, or at least having a better one, is an important feature.
As an example, last year a lot of apps come up with some features like solving a puzzle or walking a defined distance to shut down the alarm (you know, to be sure to wake up).

#10

This involves many API’s & sensors AFAIK which we dont have at this point. So, a simple alarm app is a must…