What is a Web App?

Is it this, this or that?

2012-07-20 11:04:59+0900

p.d.o, p.m.o

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6 Responses to “What is a Web App?”

  1. Marco Says:
    2012-07-20 13:47:41+0900

    In my opinion, obviously, it’s the first one.
    The others aren’t webapps, but web pages turned into something like an application. They’re a better way to use web pages, but they aren’t actually like native applications.
    A WebApp is developed as a WebApp since the start by its developer and has a good platform integration.
    A Chrome WebApp doesn’t have a good platform integration and isn’t developed as a WebApp by its developers.
    An Ubuntu WebApp has a great platform integration (but it runs into a Firefox window and not in a chromeless window) but isn’t developed as a WebApp by its developers. Moreover it uses an Ubuntu-specific API (actually, Unity-specific).
    A Firefox WebApp is developed as a WebApp by its developers and has a good platform integration (as much as it’s possible with cross-platform features) that will most probably improve in the future. For example the Firefox WebApps will have custom menus (and so on Ubuntu they will have HUD support).

    However, I wonder why Ubuntu developers didn’t contact us in order to create their webapps using our method (so they’d have chromeless windows, for example).

  2. Jair Says:
    2012-07-20 15:39:50+0900

    Dear Mr. Hommey,

    I am writing to ask you please contact me to talk about the errors I have been getting compiling from source mozilla firefox on Debian 6.0.5 (squeeze) 64bit.

    All the way from FF 4 – 10 I compiled it without major issues, but after version 11 became a nightmare, errors during the “make” phase of the compiling process…

    Here I leave you the two errors I got:

    compiling version 15.0.1 (nightly)
    /usr/bin/ld:/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta/security/nss/lib/util/nssutil.def:1: syntax error in VERSION script
    collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
    make[5]: *** [/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta/security/nss/lib/util/libnssutil3.so] Error 1
    make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta/security/nss/lib/util’
    make[4]: *** [libs] Error 2
    make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta/security/nss/lib’
    make[3]: *** [libs] Error 2
    make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta/security/manager’
    make[2]: *** [libs_tier_platform] Error 2
    make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta’
    make[1]: *** [tier_platform] Error 2
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/jair/firefox-source/mozilla-beta’
    make: *** [default] Error 2

    I got also a weird error compiling version 14.0.1.

    I have been supporting firefox since pretty long time, and it is sad for me to abandon the project because of poor software development.

    Please contact me if you think you can help me get out of this frustration and come back to firefox in Linux.

    Best regards,

  3. TK Says:
    2012-07-20 17:42:58+0900

    to Jair: You can find instructions how to install precompiled Firefox/Iceweasel versions (esr,release,beta,aurora) for different Debian releases (also squeeze). Pick right choices from dropdown boxes, and this page tells what lines to put in sources.list
    http://mozilla.debian.net/

  4. Frank Ch. Eigler Says:
    2012-07-20 18:36:40+0900

    A web app is one where you don’t own the application, nor the data, but it runs on your computer anyway.

  5. Marco Says:
    2012-07-20 19:37:29+0900

    to Frank: That isn’t true. You can own the application and you can own the data, WebApps aren’t different from native apps.
    A web application is basically an application written with a particular set of technologies (JavaScript, HTML, CSS).
    WebApps don’t necessarily save your data on the cloud, but they can use local storage APIs (for example, IndexedDB or DeviceStorage).

  6. Chris Coulson Says:
    2012-09-11 10:53:20+0900

    Hi Marco,

    I’m interested in your comment about custom menubars in Firefox webapps. I didn’t realize that such a thing was planned. As the author of the addon we ship in Ubuntu to export the Firefox menubar to the shell, I’m quite interested in seeing something like that.

    I wish I was able to give an answer for your last point…