Lightning talk for GUADEC 2013. Web application stores support in GNOME and Epiphany.

1. Web application stores in GNOME
José Dapena Paz <jdapena@igalia.com>

2. Web application stores in GNOME
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Step 1: integrate any web application in desktop
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Achieved with Epiphany “Save as Web Application”
Webs saved by user are shown as toplevel desktop
applications.
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Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

3. Web application stores in GNOME
3
Step 2: web application stores. Do we need to support
them?
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GNOME is not a big target for developers.
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Web apps are.
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Apps stores are not the key, but the apps themselves.
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We need to support the technologies they use.
App stores just give a good visibility to the applications.
Users want apps fiting their specific needs:
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The more app platforms we support, the more likely we match user
needs.
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

4. Web application stores in GNOME
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Experiment: Epiphany support for Chrome web Store and
Mozilla OpenWebApps
Available at
https://github.com/jdapena/epiphany/tree/webapp
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

5. Web application stores in GNOME
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Results: Chrome Web Store
API is not public. Any change in their APIs would break
Chrome web store support.
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Some apps use specific Chrome APIs.
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Not many, but store API's do not report that information.
Final user perception: apps randomly fail. No real good
support. They'll drop Epiphany and adopt Chrome.
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What to do? We won't play a game of cat and mouse.
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

6. Web application stores in GNOME
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Results: Mozilla marketplace
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Still not available. Expected for this year.
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API's discussion and specs are publicly available.
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Some of them already sent to W3C.
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What to do? Support it.
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

7. Web application stores in GNOME
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Implementation challenges:
Web stores support is basically implementing some
javascript API's that map to Epiphany applications
support (applications list, permissions and UI for
install/uninstall).
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Experiment implementation based on WebKit-GTK+
JavaScriptCore API. We get access from GTK+ code to the
web javascript contexts.
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Epiphany is targetting WebKit2. No direct exposure of
web javascript contexts.
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Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

8. Web application stores in GNOME
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But the key that will make the difference is supporting
the new HTML5 features apps will use.
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New graphic features (CSS3, WebGL, …).
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New types of form inputs (phone, email, date/time, …).
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Video and audio streaming, RTC, use media streams as form inputs.
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Hardware and desktop integration (battery, geolocation, full screen,
device orientation, notifications, web intents, other sensors).
This work goes mainly on WebKit and WebKit-GTK+
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

9. Web application stores in GNOME
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Goal: OpenWebApps stores support in Epiphany.
Target: Q2 2013.
Any help is warmly welcome.
But:
Apps store support RELY heavily on implementing HTML5 new
standards.
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Roadmap needs to be updated.
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Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com

10. Web application stores in GNOME
10
Goal:
OpenWebApps stores support in Epiphany.
Target: Q2 2013.
Any help is warmly welcome.
But:
Apps store support RELY heavily on
implementing HTML5 new standards.
Roadmap needs to be updated.
Jose Dapena Paz | jdapena@igalia.com | www.igalia.com