Firefox OS App Days Rome I was there!

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Given the euphoria of the day here is my report/history/impressions of the day of Saturday, January 26 in Rome dedicated to the development of Web App for FirefoxOS.
Point out that i’m a mozillian for those who does not know what it means to run to read here.
You will alert that it is very long 🙂

FirefoxOSAppDays

I know two guys never seen in person and with whom I have never spoken with them and look. It is Gimmi94 and BrokenSt0rm.
For those who wanted to know we were the youngest group with an average age of 18 years math (I was the oldest at 22).

Carl0s_ presenta FirefoxOS

We go, we sit and Carlo (Mozilla Representative Italia in photo) immediately tells us what is the password of the wifi.
A term, a program openwebappforthepeople some shorter was better because of the number of times I’ve had to put it to be able to connect during the day.
The first downloadable talk consisted of a historical analysis of the web since 2004 to advance to the potential development for the web and of course for Firefox OS and its marketplace (the marketplace is also for Firefox and desktop Firefox for Android note well). Starting from this premise, the presentation is nice and technical at the same time.

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At this point it gets more interesting because it intervenes with his talk Marco Casario (Italy HTML5 Meetup – Comtaste – Speaker to Codemotion) that explains the methods, techniques and possibilities provided by modern browsers using the W3C.

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The third talk is Luca Greco contributor FirefoxOS that in his talk he explained what constitutes a Web APP for Firefox OS and files required for its release.

Baku e FirefoxOS

The latest talk is of Andrea Marchesini (Baku) an employee who works on Mozilla Firefox OS, explained the technical details and the various APIs available and those planned for the future. After the party is the time for questions. The most interesting was that of Brokenst0rm concerned that the root permissions. Firefox OS like Android base does not give root permissions but since the kernel is Linux, you can change it to fit one with these permits. The most interesting detail is that since all OS consists of HTML files and JS js file management is all sandboxata. Or any js file is executed in isolation so its possible crash does not create problems for the rest of the system. This also explains the technical characteristics of the developer phone that compared to the other are very simple, the system weighs very little in terms of processor and RAM so you do not need powerful hardware.
In fact Firefox OS was also ported to raspberry and android phones.

With this talk (about 12 hours) change room and arrive at some sort of restaurant where we take a table and we place our computers.

For the joy of our Geek and Nerd comes time of the gadgets that I show in the picture.

Gadget Gadget

Detail of the 2 gb usb memory stick shaped like a shopping bag with the symbol of the marketplace that contains the simulator and templates for the webapp.

La pennetta Usb

we sit down and throw down ideas for our Web APP. On offer for the first 10 groups or people who had an app for Firefox OS would receive a Firefox Phone Developer Preview! Immediately BrokenSt0rm said and who takes us? My answer was: we see before making a webapp. To know ….

The ideas:

  • Sharer of contacts (missing feature in FirefoxOS)
  • Reader ZIP files
  • RSS Aggregator

In the meantime we eat (even good) free (offered by Mozilla yeeeee) and evaluate our options.
The sharer of contacts was too difficult to do in such a short time (approximately 14:30 to 17:30) because we had to discover all the bees Firefox OS to do it.
The reader zip would only serve to mobile because the desktop version of Reader zip file there are many other solutions.
The RSS reader (my proposal) proves to be an interesting idea, and fast multi-platform because code ready (there is NewsBlur on the marketplace but it’s just the desktop and very powerful with so many features).

At this time there is baku passes the version 2.0 preview (not yet public) simulator (we were using version 1 in order to test our app.

The system remembers the old versions of Android on the home screen but is much more Cool, the icons are very large compared to Android which is not bad. For the rest I could not feel anything seen quickly.

We opt for this solution, and we design a mobile interface of paper and the various features that then we are not able to integrate (sharing on social and management of feed). Brokenst0rm studying the jQuery library zRSSFeed, I found, that automatically generates html code containing the feed. I set to work on the graphical interface in HTML downloading Bootstrap from initializr. Gimmi94 is concerned with making the graphics and icon.

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We work towards the end (Brokenst0rm on my laptop and Gimmi94 with his mac)

After making the interface with the Bootstrap and tested on Firefox, I realize the dialog that allows saving the feed using localStorage. After un’pò attempts to integrate work and zRSSfeed that goes great. Without this replacement jQuery putting zepto (never used in my life) that I can not run with the above code (damn tap function). At this time miss the internet so I can not check the documentation and so we lose a good half an hour. Through the mobile hotspot Brokenstorm to try to solve the problem.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get back but jQuery Firefox OS does not support the click method so I take advantage of a plugin that adds support to the tap and NinjaRSS works!
Happy and taken from the rush (I had to leave around 17:30) we test the app properly and pulls out Gimmi94 icon draft.

After making the interface with the Bootstrap and tested on Firefox, I realize the dialog that allows saving the feed using localStorage. After un’pò attempts to integrate work and zRSSfeed that goes great. Without this replacement jQuery putting zepto (never used in my life) that I can not run with the above code (damn tap function). At this time miss the internet so I can not check the documentation and so we lose a good half an hour. Through the mobile hotspot Brokenstorm to try to solve the problem.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get back but jQuery Firefox OS does not support the click method so I take advantage of a plugin that adds support to the tap and NinjaRSS works!
Happy and taken from the rush (I had to leave around 17:30) we test the app properly and pulls out Gimmi94 icon draft.

Ecco il NinjaRSS Team!

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Starting from the left: BrokenStorm, Mte90 (I), and MattyPelly Gimmi94 that makes the symbol of victory.

Greeting baku and I congratulate him for his work and I go on.

I think back to the various compliments received for the cover of my phone with the image of the GameBoy Pocket.
While waiting for the bus I look Gimmi94 urgently but does not answer me, I get on cotral and fall asleep.
Gimmi94 reminds me of waking up and tells me that because of all (we were 70 people) were submitted 10 applications we returned. I was going to say yuhuu on the bus but did not seem the case, on the other hand I vented on Twitter.
The strongest part was when he told me that we had won one of the phones and that they had decided to give it to me (I have not had time to test the prototypes present sigh) because (their words) without me they could not do all this. At this point I finally woke up and I have not stopped tweeting for a moment of exultation thanking the boys.

The code is on github course I’ll try to fix it and release it to the marketplace, because when we say that just works XD.

From what I could see we were the youngest group and less in the sector (ie non-professional programmers) only the fans interested and have reached this milestone was something special.

I look forward to the next Mozilla event that there is in Italy.

For those wishing to try the simulator 1.0 can install this extension on Firefox. Browsing through the pages looking for the app that does not have a name nor an icon (I have already said that we were going in a hurry?) And you can try it. It will take some time to load it by clicking the button to the right, add the direct feed url and a title, the other button instead can choose the feed, the tap / click will show the feed :-).

I greet you, we told you it was along the report!
Hello and thanks Gimmi94 and BrokenStorm!

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