It's the Inter-App Communications API, aka IAC. See:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/Inter_App_Communication_Alt_proposal
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=876397
My impression of it is that it was a stop-gap mechanism that is intended
to be obsoleted by service workers or navigator.connect
(https://github.com/mkruisselbrink/navigator-connect) or something like
that, but I'm sure others can speak to it better.
Andrew
On 09/10/2015 06:36 AM, Augustin Trancart wrote:
Hi there,
Inspecting some gaia app manifests, I came across a 'connections'
fields in the SMS app [1]:
"connections": {
"costcontrolSmsQuery": {
"description": "Communicate between Usage and Sms",
"rules": {
"manifestURLs": [
"app://costcontrol.gaiamobile.org/manifest.webapp"
]
}
}
},
but there is no such field listed in the app manifest documentation on
the MDN[2].
Seeing the code, this 'costcontrolSmsQuery' is present on the sms[3]
and in costcontrol[4] apps.
The costcontrol code uses DOMApplication.connect, but I can't find any
reference to this method in the documentation[5].
For the sms code, the only reference I can get is from the
Navigator.mozSetMessageHandler mdn page[6] that tells me you can
register handlers for 'connection' system messages. This
'costcontrolSmsQuery' seems to end as a keyword in the request, but I
don't understand how this relate to this kind of inter-app
communication process (the permission required for setting a message
handler on 'connection' messages is 'mobileconnection', seems more
like network stuff right?).
I more or less understand what it is doing (and why):
- the connections field describes the connection your app will accept,
eg which system messages it will listen to? (but what about the
'messages' field of the manifest then?)
- app.connect allows you to connect to applications that have declared
this connection.
- for reasons still unclear to me, the receiving apps get the message
as a 'connection' system message.
It is correct? Is is possible to have a more formal explanation in the
documentation? What are the required permission level to use this in
gaia apps?
Thanks!
--
Augustin Trancart
Phoxygen
[1]
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/v2.2/apps%2Fsms%2Fmanifest.webapp#L78
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Build/Manifest
[3]
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/v2.2/apps%2Fsms%2Fjs%2Fsilent_sms.js#L22
[4]
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/v2.2/apps%2Fcostcontrol%2Fjs%2Fiac_manager.js#L2
[5] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMApplication
[6]
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/mozSetMessageHandler
_______________________________________________
dev-fxos mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos
_______________________________________________
dev-fxos mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos
