Preface
1 "You don't have to know if you bet on Web-based applications.
2 No one can break that without breaking browsing.
3 The Web may not be the only way to deliver software,
4 but it's one that works now and will continue to work for a long time.
5 Web-based applications are cheap to develop,
6 and easy for even the smallest startup to deliver."
7 -- Paul Graham on `why web applications are the other road ahead`.
Firefox OS, the frontier of web technologies, is the voyage of the Mozillans to explore strange new worlds, to seek out emerging and wild uninvented web technologies, and to boldly go where no man has been before!
Firefox OS is the fantacy land. It shows that everything is achievable via web technologies, and you, a web developer, can live with it happily ever after … oneday. The good thing is Firefox OS is open source: you can be the one make it a reality!
Beyond Web - GAIA FROM Above will introduce the Front End of Firefox OS - GAIA, by module and functionalities. The material in this book is mostly based on the studies of and sharing sessions from Taipei GAIA Platform(PE) and Device porting(DPE) team.
Since Firefox OS is evolving, this book is based on the master branch of Gaia (from v1.4 at 2014/12 to 2.2 2014/9).
Why I write this book
To develop a Mobile OS is a challenging task. To make Mobile OS by web technology is an ambitious and exciting goal. As the B2G and Gaia project evolve, I found the lack of documentation to help developers understand how constituents of B2G fit together. Many aspects of how the system works, such as how the system is booted or an app is launched, remain undocumented. The situation might scare developers away from start getting hands on this interesting project. As around top #30 gaia contributor, I take the action to write this book to help myself and potential contributors to learn deeply about how Gaia works.
Target Audience
Why bother reading this book
FIrefox OS is a truely open source platform based on a sophisticated web engine, Gecko, and is developed by the great open minds from Mozilla and the community. Many new Web APIs, tools, design patterns are invented and applied while web technology is unleashed to utilize mobile device capabilities. You may not want to miss the tide of modern mobile web platform.
Prerequisites
To make this book concise and readable, we assume readers to have background knowledge of Javascript, CSS, and HTML. How to develop webapps is out of scope of this book as well. A reader can learn how to develop a Firefox OS webapp from reading the articles in Build Apps for Firefox OS, watching the videos series App Basics for Firefox OS, or reading the book Quick Guide For Firefox OS App Development.
Let’s start the journey.
Credit
Thanks Mozilla to bring web as the platform to the community. Carriers and device vendors also play the key roles to make this open source platform delivered to amount of people.
The main author is Fred Lin who coordinates the book structure and the writing.
Related chapters are based on presentations and documents from:
- Gaia under the hood - Kanru Chen
- Build script - Yuren Ju
- System and window management - Alive kuo and Luke Chang
- Settings - Arthur chen
The awesome book cover is designed by Vit Lai.
Since the book is CC 2.0 shared-alike license, part of this book is available on MDN. Thanks Chris Mills for editing.
Discussion
If you have any issue or any comments about this book, please go to the feedback section in book landing page and leave your comment there.