Discussion, about whether firetext is feasible for writing apps

[Ryuno-Ki]

As you probably have noticed, Nov 10th was Firefox 10th birthday.

I joined a chat on Twitter about whether it may now be possible to write web apps on Firefox OS.

Immediately firetext came to my mind (see Twitter). However, last time I used it (some months ago) I was not able to write a webapp using only this app.

I'm aware of not being able to produce a certificated/privileged app with it (since that needs Mozilla's certs), but is it possible to write something, which can be displayed in a browser?

On a desktop I'd use the pseudo-protocol file:// for that, which isn't available on Firefox OS as far as I know. Neither is there a server.

So how would you procede, if you would live, say, in Africa, where Internet is hardly available and you cannot assume everyone having a laptop? I'd really like to see Firetext enabling web literacy there!

[twiss]

I guess you could do worse than Firetext at introducing people to html. Things we could do to improve on that (not saying, necessarily, that we should):

• Allow <script>s, including alert and co
• Include pointers to learning more, maybe behind a help button
• [Editor] Implement better code editor #192
• Produce properly formatted html

Also, (not related to Firetext but) it would be really cool if Firefox OS exposed a storage area with installed apps' code in them, so that you could create an app to edit pre-installed apps or create new ones.

[Ryuno-Ki]

Did you get in touch with Mozilla, yet, @twiss?

If not, I'm opening a new through on both, dev-b2g and dev-gaia to clarify this.

[twiss]

Not yet, please do! Btw, you can also already do what I'm describing with the Web IDE in Firefox.

[ferndot]

That is a neat idea. We need to be especially careful with scripts, as they can introduce vulnerability into the app. Maybe, we have a design mode (WYSIWYG) editor that does not do scripts, a code editor, and a button that opens the app in a new browser tab?

[Ryuno-Ki]

Sure, but WebIDE demands a Laptop/Desktop/…

Africa is poor. I am not certainly sure, we can assume people have that hardware there. Instead many of them use their mobile as first computing device.

Opened up a thread as Expose Storage Area, so people can write apps.

[ferndot]

👍!

[ferndot]

Related to #278

[ferndot]

Also, an important related change: #192