[whatwg] Installable web apps

[Dion Almaer]

I think that unifying as much as possible would be a win. We could either:

a) each browser has their own formats, and someone generates tools to spit
them all out
b) come to some agreement on at least a base set (with vendor goodies added)

As a developer, I want to create one app and send that one app to multiple
web stores and have it work in multiple browser clients.

I have been working on taking the Chrome format from
http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/docs/developers_guide.html and showing it
with the other formats out there. Some are webby, some are mobiley, but
interesting to view:

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/manifest-intro.html
http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1748&Itemid=43
http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Web_Developers_Library/GUID-BBA0299B-81B6-4508-8D5B-5627206CBF7B.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/#configuration-document0

There are many differences in the goals of this formats, but there are some
large overlapping areas too.

I have been writing about some thoughts on app stores too (
http://almaer.com/blog/what-should-the-future-of-web-app-stores-be,
http://almaer.com/blog/chrome-web-store-the-opportunity-for-breaking-out-of-silos-with-experience
).

I am sure people may have strong issues around permissions and the like. We
have been spending time on permissions ourselves and it would be nice to
have more options than full up front permissions in a string array.

Excited to watch this play out.

Cheers,

Dion


On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Aaron Boodman <aa at google.com> wrote:

> This has come up before, but since Google has officially announced the
> project at IO, and Mozilla has voiced interest in the idea on their
> blog, I felt like it might be a good to revisit.
>
> Google would like to make today's web apps "installable" in Chrome.
> >From a user's point of view, installing a web app would:
>
> - Give it a permanent access point in the browser with a big juicy icon
> - Allow the browser to treat a web app as a conceptual unit (eg give
> it special presentation, show how much storage it uses)
> - Add some light integration with the OS
> - (optionally) Pre-grant some permissions that would otherwise have to
> be requested one-at-a-time (eg geolocation, notifications)
> - (optionally) Grant access to some APIs that would otherwise be
> inaccessible (eg system clipboard, permanent storage)
>
> There is some more background on our thinking at these two URL:
>
> http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/
> http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/docs
>
> We have started implementing this using Chrome's current extension
> system. However, we'd like it if installation could eventually work in
> other browsers. Is there any interest from other vendors in
> collaborating on the design of such a system?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - a
>
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