Hey Stefan - good idea! fwiw, the Android support library has the WorkManager API <https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/workmanager/basics> which handles similar functionality. However, it's a push rather than a poll (as you suggested): you tell it the constraints under which you want your job to run (any battery level, metered network, run once) and it'll find a good time for it to run. We could consider providing bindings to this library for our native code and Gecko, or write our own policy framework. - Mike (:mcomella)
On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 12:52 PM Stefan Arentz <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I was debugging something completely unrelated to Firefox on my Mac when I > saw the following events in my console: > > 501:com.apple.safarishared.WBSParsecDSession.*autoFillDataUpdate*:FD5887:[ > {name: *DeviceActivityPolicy*, policyWeight: 2.000, response: {*Decision: > Can Proceed*, Score: 0.89}} > ] sumScores:31.798889, denominator:32.010000, *FinalDecision: Can > Proceed,* Final Score: 0.993405} > > 501:com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.*BrowsingDatabases.Update*:D8F622:[ > {name: *ChargerPluggedInPolicy*, policyWeight: 20.000, response: > {*Decision: > Must Not Proceed*, Score: 0.00, Rationale: [{/*device/system/isPluggedIn > == 0*}]}} > ], *FinalDecision: Must Not Proceed*} > > What you are looking at is an OS-provided policy engine that can tell an > application if now is a good time to perform a specific task. Specifically > tasks that use a scarce resource like the network, battery or cpu. This is > all about not being that energy hog on a mobile device. > > In the above two samples the tasks involve talking to the network; syncing > autofill data with iCloud and keeping a SafeBrowsing database up to date. > The first request is allowed to happen while the second is not. This is > because I removed the charging cable from my macBook and to safe energy, > macOS recommends to not do unnecessary network activity in that case. > > This would be wonderful to have in our Android products. But probably also > in Gecko - assuming we have a lot of people using laptops. > > For example those products could start asking questions like: > > - Should we vacuum our SQLite databases? (No - the user is actively using > the application and the battery level is low) > - Should we download the safe browsing database? (No - the device is not > connected to the charger) > - Should we resize screenshots for top sites? (No - the device is > running a bit hot currently) > - Should we sync history and bookmarks? (No - the device is in a > downgraded network state, like GPRS or 3G vs the normal LTE) > - Should we download the latest Nightly update? (No - disk space is low) > > I think if we build a policy engine that lets you describe your intent ("I > want to download an 80 MB file") together with weighted policies > (DeviceActivity, NetworkType, DiskSpace, NetworkType, etc.) we could > improve the scheduling of tasks and be more efficient on battery powered > devices. > > What do you think? Is this something we should invest in? > > S. > > _______________________________________________ > android-components mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/android-components > _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
