As some of you are aware, a widget spec or two (http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/PR-widgets-apis-20120522/) have been floating around for a while. These specs never gained any traction for various reasons - not the least of which was due to their overly complex structures and APIs.
Well, hold on to your shorts: I would like to rekindle the idea of web widgets, but with an eye toward simplicity that builds upon open web app concepts and mechanism. My proposal is pretty simple: widgets are simply an alternate (or even the same) app 'launch_path' that a developer would declared under a 'widget' key in their existing App Manifest. The UA would launch this URL in whatever widget UI containers it creates, for example: squares on New Tab, a floating panel, etc., and add a few things to the document context - namely: an imperative means for detecting the document is being displayed in a widget state, and a new media query type 'widget' for styling (especially helpful if the developers chooses to use a single origin for their app and widget) What this does for us: - Let's us utilize the existing declaration and installation mechanisms for web apps (which is the same place widgets are already declared in today's common native app packages) - Provides a great new source of content for Firefox Desktop - Primes the pump for widgets on Firefox OS using a mechanism it already understands - Delivers huge user benefit at a relatively low cost "Stupid-Simple Web Widgets: great idea, or greatest idea?...I'm gonna put you down for great." _______________________________________________ dev-webapps mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
