Baseline target platform

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Hi all,

I am currently working on a FxOS app. At one point during the development,
I came across a gotcha that doesn't seem to be discussed elsewhere. By
posting here, I'm not sure whether I am looking for guidance or
confirmation; just air your opinions and I'll be content :-)

(I'm not entirely confident that this is the correct forum for this. Please
point me in the right direction if it is not).

The question: for FxOS development, what would currently be a reasonably
safe baseline target platform?

I'll explain. MDN has a listing of the FxOS handsets available in the
market[1]. At the time of writing, only one of these has FxOS 1.3 on it
(1.3pre, to be precise; the Geeksphone Revolution). The rest run 1.0.1 or
1.1.

Detection of JS capabilities has been discussed elsewhere before (eg: over
at mozilla.dev.webapi[2]), but CSS capabilities are another kind of beast.
For one flexboxes weren't supported until Firefox/Gecko 22, but FxOS 1.1 is
based on v18[4], and therefore doesn't get those.

The lack of flexbox support is disturbing enough. Mozilla encourages using
them, by means of the Quickstart documentation[5], or using them for some
Building Blocks[6].

Mozilla also encourages testing FxOS applications using the App Manager,
but this gives you a minimum FxOS 1.2[6]. In order to test for 1.1 I have
to use the old Simulator, which is discontinued and may stop working soon
(the docs say I should be using Firefox 24 or 25[7], but I use it
successfully on Aurora 30 on a Mac).

If I went by this 1.2 baseline, I wouldn't be able to run my app on my own
handset, a ZTE Open. Incidentally, the device was initially on 1.0.1 and I
upgraded it to 1.1 myself. Now I'm wondering if it was a good idea to
upgrade it at all, given that it may hide problems that my app may have
running on 1.0.1.

For the purposes of developing my application, I have installed Firefox 18,
which I run using a profile separate from my normal browsing one. This
seems to work well for spot checks, JS unit tests, and integration tests
(for which I use Selenium). This gives me enough confidence that my app
will work in other handsets.

Despite my current solution, my questions persist. Mozilla seems to be
encouraging developers to use 1.2 as baseline, but hardly any devices out
there run it. This problem is not mentioned on the docs, or if it is it's
not stressed at all. FxOS handsets are already being sold to the public,
and there's a risk of disappointing users with apps that don't work for
their devices, unbeknownst to the developers themselves.

What do you people think?

Thank you,

[1]
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developer_phone_guide/Phone_specs
[2]
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.webapi/mQPZ-38wgy4/rYNnbZZaQsEJ(among
other discussions)
[3] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/22.0/releasenotes/
[4]
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developer_phone_guide/Phone_specs#Firefox+OS+by+version
[5] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Design (in turn linked from
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Quickstart)
[6] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Using_the_App_Manager
[7] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Firefox_OS_1.1_Simulator

--
Pablo Brasero Moreno
pa...@pablobm.com

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Yeah - it's a huge problem. I just the other day managed to get my ancient
(September 2013) ZTE Open up to 1.4 with a flash build from source. I have
a Geeksphone Revolution, but I chose to run it Android (Jellybean) rather
than Firefox OS / Boot to Gecko, since I already have the ZTE.

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>



--
Twitter: http://twitter.com/znmeb; Computational Journalism on a Stick
http://j.mp/CompJournoStickOverview

My poltergeist can beat up your zeitgeist.

[Fabricio C Zuardi]

FxOS 1.1 is our personal IE6 here in Brazil already… (yay fragmentation) :)

LG Fireweb devices will stay on that version forever since the manufacturer doesn't even acknowledge the existence of such a device on their support websites, also, they come with a locked bootloader so manually building from source is not an option (in spite of our CTO having told the audience of campus party in são paulo otherwise[1]).

[1]: http://youtu.be/3JE0P5obpvI?t=52m45s

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

On 29 April 2014 19:02, Fabricio C Zuardi <fabr...@fabricio.org> wrote:

> FxOS 1.1 is our personal IE6 here in Brazil already…
>

Oh God...

What target do people develop for then? 1.1 or 1.0.1?

According to MDN both versions are based on Gecko 18, although 1.1 has some
additional APIs, which I take are the ones listed in the release notes[1].

Assuming I don't need any of these APIs, is there a reason to use 1.0.1 as
my baseline, or can I stay with 1.1?

Thank you!

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/notes/1.1#webapis

[Lisa Brewster]

Pablo, this is a very articulate outline of our current areas of
fragmentation. Thanks for writing it up!

I feel some of your same pain, here's what I can add from an app review
perspective.

By default, today we test apps on v1.1, because that's the latest
commercially available version. During submission, developers have the
ability to specify that certain api's are required, in which case the app
will not be shown to users whose devices don't support those api's. Api
support will vary by hardware capabilities and Firefox OS version.

Feature detection is the right approach here philosophically, but in
practice it causes edge cases where not all features can be detected yet,
or sometimes there are platform bugs that cause the app to break on
earlier versions of Firefox OS. When this happens, we ask that the
developer specify the min version and requirements in the app description.
We'll review on up to v1.3 on a Keon.

Devices running v1.3 will be released in the near future, which puts us in
a complicated spot. Standardizing on the Flame reference device is the
answer here, but will have tradeoffs ensuring app compatibility for users
who can't update.

--
Kind regards,
Lisa Brewster [:adora]
Marketplace App Review Manager

-----Original Message-----
From: Pablo Brasero Moreno <pa...@pablobm.com>
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 at 4:44 PM
To: <dev-w...@lists.mozilla.org>
Subject: Re: Baseline target platform

>On 29 April 2014 19:02, Fabricio C Zuardi <fabr...@fabricio.org> wrote:
>

>> FxOS 1.1 is our personal IE6 here in Brazil alreadyŠ

>>
>
>Oh God...
>
>What target do people develop for then? 1.1 or 1.0.1?
>
>According to MDN both versions are based on Gecko 18, although 1.1 has
>some
>additional APIs, which I take are the ones listed in the release notes[1].
>
>Assuming I don't need any of these APIs, is there a reason to use 1.0.1 as
>my baseline, or can I stay with 1.1?
>
>Thank you!
>
>[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/notes/1.1#webapis
>--
>Pablo Brasero Moreno
>pa...@pablobm.com

[Kohei Yoshino]

On 2014-04-29, 2:02 PM, Fabricio C Zuardi wrote:
> FxOS 1.1 is our personal IE6 here in Brazil already…

That's the thing I have been really afraid of.

The baseline of my BzDeck app is the current release version (1.3) because it's a demonstrative app mainly for Mozilla developers who can upgrade their phone themselves, but I guess most app developers are stuck with 1.1.

https://github.com/kyoshino/bzdeck/wiki/Tech-Notes

-Kohei

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Lisa, I hope those of us who choose to buy a "Flame" on the open market,
since we're not eligible for a Mozilla-supplied device, will not suffer
from the same dismal fate as those of us who bought a ZTE Open. I just the
other day managed to get a home-compiled build of 1.4 flashed to my open,
and since I got the device in September of last year it's been nothing but
trouble. If there was a partnership between ZTE and Mozilla to support
developers, I didn't see *any* evidence of it.

Is there in fact a plan, strategy, web site, whatever for supporting
"Flame" devices for those who plunk down the cash for one?

[Lisa Brewster]

Not that it's a very high bar to beat, but there will definitely be better
support for Flame than ZTE Open. + Asa, who might have details to share.

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Well, thank you for your input everyone. I have put together some
conclusions. Please let me know if you disagree or have something to add. I
also have some questions towards the end, for those brave enough to read
the whole thing and still be wanting more.

Developers of FxOS applications should develop with 1.1 in mind for now.
Mozilla is planning to make the Flame be the reference device, but this
will only be relevant in the mid/long term, once there are more 1.3 devices
available to the general public.

Interestingly, Mozilla is currently encouraging developers to use 1.2+
simulators, as well as practises (chiefly flexboxes) that don't work well
in earlier versions and whose support cannot always be detected at runtime.
This means that a number of newly arrived developers are going to develop
new apps without being aware of these downsides.

These developers can be divided into these categories:

A) Those who have 1.0.1 or 1.1 devices. They will try their apps on their
own devices and realise that something is amiss
B.1) Those who have 1.2+ devices: they may create apps that don't work on
old devices, and they may be unaware of this problem
B.2) Those who don't actually have a FxOS device and just use the
simulators. (Do these actually exist...?)

Those under (A) may be upset if they have been using a 1.2+ simulator and
suddenly find they can't use their own app on their own devices. At least
they'll realise the problem in time and fix it (hopefully).

Those under (B) will only become aware of the problem at the Marketplace
review stage. However, if the review isn't thorough enough, problems could
be missed, hitting end users.

OS upgrades are not the solution. At the moment they are not automatic,
require using adb in the best of cases, and even then they doesn't always
work. I'm a tech-savy individual and I couldn't upgrade my ZTE Open to 1.2
following the instructions (although now I think I should stick to 1.1
anyway). This means we definitely cannot expect end users to upgrade their
phones at all.

(Speaking of which: LG is evil. Its case serves as evidence that Mozilla
shouldn't be so confident about devices always being upgradeable/hackable:
hardware vendors will always ultimately do whatever they want, regardless
of their users' best interest).

But there's still hope. I haven't been through the Marketplace submission
process yet, so I can only speak from what I read. The Marketplace review
criteria [1] state that, apart from checking the manifest, a reviewer will
use the app for a few minutes. Also, Lisa tells us on this thread that 1.1
is being used for reviewing.

My perception is that the apps available on the marketplace right now are
not terribly complex. If this is true, reviewers should be able to catch
these problems. Also, the criteria say that reviewers may be able to point
developers in the right direction when problems are found. This could
potentially help a lot. I wonder if the Marketplace team have data
available on how this is working out so far.

I wonder how much of a problem the current situation is after all. For
example, how many owners of FxOS devices are not developers? FxOS phones
lack some very popular apps (eg: WhatsApp). Why would these people choose
theses devices in the first place? Do they actually care about apps? Maybe
they are just content with basic phone functionality and browsing.

If this is the case, then all this is still not a problem. It will become a
problem in the future, as new web technologies emerge that are not
supported by 1.3 or whatever comes later, but we'll still be in a better
place. Mozilla's strategy of starting FxOS by kindling the fire with a
couple sub-standar versions will have paid off.

[1]
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Submission/Marketplace_review_criteria

Pablo Brasero Moreno
pa...@pablobm.com

[krupa....@gmail.com]

This seems pretty similar to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=793884

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Yes, but I agree with the "wontfix" resolution. This is about webapps, and
with webapps feature detection is the way to go. Otherwise we'll be back to
the dark ages of the browser wars.

I don't think FxOS is it about FxOS itself, but about developing
technologies that will enable us to create applications for any device,
regardless of the underlying system. If successful, in the far future FxOS
will become redundant, because the same technologies that create apps for
this system will serve to create apps for iOS, Android, or whatever will be
fashionable then.

Therefore, "version X minimum required" stickers are harmful. What we have
right now is not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

On 2 May 2014 21:08, <krupa....@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday, May 2, 2014 12:45:21 PM UTC-7, Pablo Brasero Moreno wrote:

> This seems pretty similar to
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=793884

[remi.du...@gmail.com]

A lot of things to say on this long message :)
I'll answer you with my own experience.

First of all, you speak about FxOS 1.2+. I think you're mistaken, you wanted to speak about FxOS 1.3+
yes, the simulator exists for 1.2, but the differences between 1.1 and 1.2 are not big, while the support for flexboxes arrives in 1.3 (and Gecko 28)
see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/B2G_Landing
and https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/28.0/releasenotes/

Le vendredi 2 mai 2014 15:45:21 UTC-4, Pablo Brasero Moreno a écrit :
> These developers can be divided into these categories:

the categories you've given are still developers ;) So, it's our work to know which technology is available or not (moreover, the MDN is very clear on it! see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibility for the flexbox example)

> (Speaking of which: LG is evil. Its case serves as evidence that Mozilla
>
> shouldn't be so confident about devices always being upgradeable/hackable:
>
> hardware vendors will always ultimately do whatever they want, regardless
>
> of their users' best interest).

completely agree

> But there's still hope. I haven't been through the Marketplace submission
>
> process yet, so I can only speak from what I read. The Marketplace review
>
> criteria [1] state that, apart from checking the manifest, a reviewer will
>
> use the app for a few minutes. Also, Lisa tells us on this thread that 1.1
>
> is being used for reviewing.

Yes and no. You can find some applications that have in their description "only run on FxOS 1.3 or above". If you specify it, the reviewer will test your application with a compatible version of FxOS ;)


And to answer Pablo Brasero Moreno:

I completely agree with you, and the system of autodetection of Mozilla is a good idea (an app that needs geolocation will not be installable on a device that doesn't have it).
HOWEVER, this detection is only on JavaScript APIs. I use flexbox in my app, so my app is only available for 1.3+, but there is no detection for it, nor the user will be told that the app won't run on its device!
unless the user know its current version of FxOS and read the complete description of the app. You know lots of people that are not in IT that even know what's the name of their phone OS?

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

On 4 May 2014 18:52, <remi.du...@gmail.com> wrote:

> First of all, you speak about FxOS 1.2+. I think you're mistaken, you
> wanted to speak about FxOS 1.3+
> yes, the simulator exists for 1.2, but the differences between 1.1 and 1.2
> are not big, while the support for flexboxes arrives in 1.3 (and Gecko 28)
> see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/B2G_Landing
> and https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/28.0/releasenotes/
>

You are correct, perhaps I should have said 1.3 instead of 1.2. I mentioned
1.2 because it implements single-line flexboxes, and I thought I had seen
it performing better in some flexbox examples, but maybe I got confused at
some point. Let's say 1.3+ then.

> the categories you've given are still developers ;) So, it's our work to
> know which technology is available or not (moreover, the MDN is very clear
> on it! see
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibilityfor the flexbox example)
>

Sure they are all developers, but I wanted to separate them into categories
based on how they may become aware of the limitations.

I actually disagree that MDN is very clear on it. MDN does make an effort
to be clear, but it is not necessarily always successful. In the example
you mention, that page displays the compatible Gecko versions. From there
to FxOS version there's another research step, as developers won't
necessarily know the mapping by heart, or even be aware of it.

The way I see it, new developers will arrive and follow the steps outlined
on the Quickstart guide:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/QuickstartAt some point
they'll follow the links on it and visit
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Design, which encourages the use
of flexboxes. A newly arrived developer is not going to even be aware of
these problems, and probably won't even realise until they test the app on
their own device (assuming they have a 1.0.1/1.1 handset).

Yes, MDN makes an effort to list support levels for each feature, but also
suffers from:

* Lack of a clear route for new developers to follow. Instead there's a
quickstart page that then sends them off to unrelated, generic pages on MDN
that explain things, but not from the perspective they need.

* Information density. There's so much that newly arrived developers will
have difficulties knowing what to look at, and what is actually relevant to
them.

I don't mean to say that MDN is not a great resource: it is great indeed.
It's just that it doesn't necessarily fulfill those specific needs. This is
in the same way as Wikipedia is not great as a standalone history course
because you'd not even know where to start from.

Yes and no. You can find some applications that have in their description
> "only run on FxOS 1.3 or above". If you specify it, the reviewer will test
> your application with a compatible version of FxOS ;)
>

Yeah, that's actually great. It has the problem that some developers won't
even be aware of their incompatibility with old versions, but hopefully
reviewers will catch those.

> And to answer Pablo Brasero Moreno:
>
> I completely agree with you, and the system of autodetection of Mozilla is
> a good idea (an app that needs geolocation will not be installable on a
> device that doesn't have it).
> HOWEVER, this detection is only on JavaScript APIs. I use flexbox in my
> app, so my app is only available for 1.3+, but there is no detection for
> it, nor the user will be told that the app won't run on its device!
> unless the user know its current version of FxOS and read the complete
> description of the app. You know lots of people that are not in IT that
> even know what's the name of their phone OS?
>

Sure, I think we have a misunderstanding here. Of course there does need to
be that filtering. People can't be expected to know or not whether their
device supports this API or that CSS property.

When I asked what kind of users have FxOS phones, I was wondering whether
there are actually any users who are not tech savvy. Simply because I can't
see the marketing angle to sell these devices to non-techies at the moment.
There perfectly can be one, but since I don't know the markets, I can't see
it myself.

The reason for my asking that is that, if there are no "real" end users
yet, all this may not be a problem yet. We have time to develop apps and
catch up in terms of apps, functionality, etc, to make the phones appealing
to markets.

[ndesau...@mozilla.com]

Does `"flex" in document.createElement("div").style` not work? Where does feature detection not work? I mean, flexbox still isn't widely implemented anyways across browsers. [0]

I agree that we shouldn't have any mention of 1.2 for the simulators [1].

Right now Mozilla doesn't have leverage over the carriers/handset manufacturers to keep all devices supported forever; Google barely does. It sucks and is shitty, but maybe our branding team could start including such requirements. Locked bootloaders are also pretty evil. But if we can get in this space with a non insignificant marketshare, we can change the landscape. It's not going to just change overnight. That's why we've been working on a reference device where WE are in control, not hardware vendors. Will that pan out? We will see...

For now, target 1.1. Soon, many devices will start shipping with 1.3 or receiving OTA updates. Ignore 1.2. If you're not happy with MDN, it's a public wiki, edit where you see fit. The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. Also, Feature Detection, Feature Detection, Feature Detection. If you have trouble detecting support for some feature, email me directly, and I'll work with you on finding a way to support devices that don't have such a feature, or at least fail gracefully on them.

The FxOS Release notes for developers are where we post API changes between version. [2] I'm guessing you're looking for these.

If we sold 400k phones last year, I'm going to venture that most of those weren't mostly to technical oriented folks, though I don't think we have the market research to accurately describe our actual customers.

[0] http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox
[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1004725
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Releases

[remi.du...@gmail.com]

Le lundi 5 mai 2014 17:19:50 UTC-4, ndesau...@mozilla.com a écrit :
> Does `"flex" in document.createElement("div").style` not work? Where does feature detection not work? I mean, flexbox still isn't widely implemented anyways across browsers.

I'm not sure I understand your question, so maybe you'll agree with what comes after (I'm not a native English speaker...)
I said that the actual feature detection only works with JavaScript APIs (battery, geolocation...). But not with other HTML5 features (like flexbox). which is actually a problem for a majority of FxOS devices, so it would be great that feature detection detects it ;)
Flexbox is actually well implemented in all stable browers (except for IE because it is complex to have it last stable version as it is not available on all windows).
Another problem is the use of the "const" JavaScript keyword. AFAIK, it is only supported by IE and Firefox. But if webapps expand to all browsers / OS, feature detection should detects it.

Also, I don't develop webapps for a majority of users (my apps have no ads, no payment). I develop them with the technologies that are easy for me to use. If only people with FxOS 1.3+ can use them, I don't care. I tell myself that if everybody acts like I do, maybe LG and others will provide FxOS update (?)

also, about this point... We already saw the problem of multiple OS versions with Android. I think that having a new version of FxOS every 6 months (or even less) is clearly not a good idea. We all know that constructors will *never* provide updates.

I wasn't aware of the number of FxOS devices sold in the world. 400 000 is great :) maybe even more this year with the European market!

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Wow, I wasn't aware you could test for CSS capabilities through the `style`
property. Thanks for that.

Actually Nick, thank you for your feedback in general. I apologise if I
sounded whiney by the way. My intention is to clarify these questions, not
to criticise the tremendous efforts that have been put so far.

The figure of 400k phones is amazing. Has Mozilla (or others) published
this information somewhere, with any further details?

Thanks to all involved in this thread. It has indeed helped me understand
the situation better.

On 5 May 2014 22:19, <ndesau...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Does `"flex" in document.createElement("div").style` not work? Where does
> feature detection not work? I mean, flexbox still isn't widely implemented

> _______________________________________________
> dev-webapps mailing list
> dev-w...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
>

[Nick Desaulniers]

Pablo,
No worries; I learned a long time ago that text doesn't accurately
portray tone, so I try to always give people
the benefit of the doubt online. Take that lesson to heart.

From [0] :

" Around 390,000 Firefox OS phones shipped last year, according to IDC,
a figure it expects to rise to 2.5 million this year. That will give
Firefox OS a 0.2 percent share of the total smartphone market, IDC
analyst Francisco Jeronimo said via email."

Any other questions about feature detection, email me directly. Feature
detection is kind of my thing, and
UA sniffing is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

[0]
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2094040/telefnica-partners-with-line-on-messaging-app-for-firefox-os.html

Thanks,
~Nick Desaulniers
Open Source Zealot
Mozilla Corporation

On 5/8/14 3:27 AM, Pablo Brasero Moreno wrote:
> Wow, I wasn't aware you could test for CSS capabilities through the
> `style` property. Thanks for that.
>
> Actually Nick, thank you for your feedback in general. I apologise if
> I sounded whiney by the way. My intention is to clarify these
> questions, not to criticise the tremendous efforts that have been put
> so far.
>
> The figure of 400k phones is amazing. Has Mozilla (or others)
> published this information somewhere, with any further details?
>
> Thanks to all involved in this thread. It has indeed helped me
> understand the situation better.
>
>
> On 5 May 2014 22:19, <ndesau...@mozilla.com

> dev-w...@lists.mozilla.org <mailto:dev-w...@lists.mozilla.org>
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
>
>
>
>
> --
> Pablo Brasero Moreno
> pa...@pablobm.com <mailto:pa...@pablobm.com>

[Chris Mills]

Hi Pablo,

I’m Chris Mills from the MDN team, and I’ve been reading this thread with great interest. Thanks for the insights - anything that can help us make MDN better is much appreciated.

So in terms of making the situation better in the App Center, I’m seeing these things:

* Provide a clear idea of what Firefox OS versions developers should be developing for. We haven’t got this, and I agree we should say something about it. We should advise 1.1, imo, or at least tell developers to provide fallbacks for 1.1 if they are including >1.1 styling of script features, if possible.

* Provide more obvious ideas of what features work on Firefox OS. I’ve added in Firefox OS support info to a lot of our API pages, but I think I need to be more vigilant about this. Another idea I had was to include an icon bar at the top of each page so that readers can quickly see what browsers/devices support that feature, without having to go all the way to the bottom of the page. I’ll write up some specs/mockups for this soon.

* Provide more guidance for those starting out than just the single quickstart. We are working on a series of dev recommendations, tutorials and tools that should help a lot with this. More soon!

Is there anything else I have missed? If you have more ideas about improving Apps/Firefox OS content on MDN, please feel free to sent them to me.

Best regards,

Chris Mills
Senior tech writer || Mozilla
developer.mozilla.org || MDN
cmi...@mozilla.com || @chrisdavidmills

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Chris, that's amazing. Yes, I agree that the action points proposed would
greatly alleviate the problems I describe.

Something else that could be improved is the support for the 1.1 simulator.
It used to work on my Aurora 30, but it has stopped now, forcing me to
install Firefox 25 on the side. Of course that's separate from MDN though.

Thank you,

> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibilityforthe flexbox example)

[Harald Kirschner]

Pabo,

I am happy to report that 1.1 Simulator is getting some more love again and that it should work in your latest FF some time soon: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1001590 .

/Harald

Partner Engineer & Web Craftsman | har...@mozilla.com 

From: Pablo Brasero Moreno pa...@pablobm.com
Reply: Pablo Brasero Moreno pa...@pablobm.com
Date: May 13, 2014 at 7:37:46 AM
To: Chris Mills cmi...@mozilla.com
Cc: remi.du...@gmail.com remi.du...@gmail.com, mozilla-d...@lists.mozilla.org mozilla-d...@lists.mozilla.org
Subject:  Re: Baseline target platform

[Chris Mills]

HI there,

I have started the improvement work, to try to improve things.

I have:

* Added some information here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Quickstart#Firefox_OS
* And here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Introduction#Developing_apps_for_Firefox_OS
* I’ve added notes to the app center reference; see the top of https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Reference …
* … and the bottom of https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Reference/Layout_and_structure
* I’ve also added Firefox OS support information to a lot of the reference support tables, for example
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibility
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/Using_geolocation#Browser_compatibility
* I have also included supported version numbers in the API permissions table: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Build/App_permissions

I will also follow up soon with a mail about my idea for quicker, at a reference browser support info at the top of support pages.

Let me know what else you think needs to be done ;-)

Chris Mills
Senior tech writer || Mozilla
developer.mozilla.org || MDN
cmi...@mozilla.com || @chrisdavidmills

> >> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibilityfor the flexbox example)

[remi.du...@gmail.com]

@Nick: OK I understand my misunderstanding. You were speaking about feature detection *in app* while I was speaking about feature detection *in the marketplace*.

Actually, the marketplace can't detect the use of flexboxes and thus, can't tell a user that the app will work or not on his device, as it is done with the JavaScript APIs.
I think this is a real need as developers may know that flexbox will only work on Firefox 28+ / Firefox OS 1.3+ ut it is hard to make the user understand it.

[Pablo Brasero Moreno]

Chris, just a quick one to say great job. I think those changes will go a
long way. Will let you know if I spot some other place where the
clarification might be needed.

> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibilityforthe flexbox example)

[Chris Mills]

Thanks. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you find anything else that could be improved upon, or any data that is missing (e.g compatibility data on reference pages.) I’m more than happy to respond to requests.

Best regards,

Chris Mills
Senior tech writer || Mozilla
developer.mozilla.org || MDN
cmi...@mozilla.com || @chrisdavidmills

> > >> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=CSS%2FTutorials%2FUsing_CSS_flexible_boxes#Browser_compatibilityfor the flexbox example)