Firefox OS Web Apps

[? Music ?] [Treehouse presents] 0:00 [Quick Tips] [Web Apps] [Firefox OS with Jim Hoskins] 0:02 [In association with Mozilla] 0:04 Building apps for Firefox OS is easy, 0:06 because the apps are just web apps. 0:08 Web apps are applications that utilize web technologies 0:11 like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 0:14 This means you can leverage your existing skills and experience 0:17 creating websites to build applications for Firefox OS. 0:20 You no longer have to learn another programming language 0:25 and a framework. 0:27 You can even use much of your existing web application code 0:29 to create installable web apps. 0:32 There are 2 main types of apps: 0:34 hosted apps and packaged apps. 0:36 Hosted apps are the simplest form. 0:40 They're just like any other web application, 0:42 and they're hosted on your server, 0:44 but it can also be installed to the device 0:46 using some simple JavaScript and a special file called the manifest. 0:48 The manifest provides information about your app 0:54 that is used to install it to the device. 0:56 The other type of app is called a packaged application. 0:59 While it still uses web technologies to power it, 1:03 instead of being hosted on the web 1:05 and accessible via web browser, 1:07 the app is packaged into a zip file, 1:09 which is then downloaded and installed to the device. 1:12 Aside from how they're accessed, 1:15 packaged apps differ from hosted apps in a few critical ways. 1:17 A packaged app can have special access to device APIs 1:22 that are not normally accessible in normal web apps. 1:25 These are called privileged apps, and they offer you the opportunity 1:29 to interact with the device using APIs 1:32 that interact with the alarms, notifications, 1:35 contacts on the device, and the ability to make network calls 1:38 via HTTP, TCP, and more. 1:42 With the power a privileged app provides also comes responsibility. 1:45 By being allowed to access these sensitive APIs, 1:50 your app will also have to conform with some restrictions 1:52 in order to ensure the privacy and security of your users. 1:56 Privileged apps must be reviewed and approved 1:59 by the Firefox OS Marketplace. 2:02 The app must also conform to a content security policy. 2:04 That helps create an environment where untrusted code 2:09 cannot be used in your application, 2:12 a situation that would be bad for the user's security. 2:14

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