On 05/27/2012 01:35 AM, Marcos Caceres wrote:
On 26 May 2012, at 18:32, Anant Narayanan<an...@mozilla.com> wrote:
The intent for the screen_size parameters is not to let the developer enforce a
particular screen size or resolution, but rather specify the *minimum* width
and height required by the app. This means that on a screen below the specified
size, the app will not function at all.
To make this more clear, maybe call this min_screen_size.
Well, we haven't received this request from developers explicitly yet,
but one can imagine a situation in which a developer makes an app only
for mobile phones (Instagram?) and doesn't want users to use it on
desktops. Even though it'll technically work, it might look ugly due to
scaling. In this case, we'll need a max_screen_size.
I will also note that it is upto the app store to interpret this field however
they'd like. If they do not want to disallow installs on devices that don't
meet the developer-specified criteria, that's fine. However, we should still
convey this information from the developer to the store via the manifest.
At install time or when I am browsing apps, how does a server know my screen
resolution? Or is this restriction imposed on by the user agent?
The same way an app would find out, by feature sniffing. The app store
is also presumably a web page or a "native" store, in either case, it
should be able to know the characteristics of the current device using
standard techniques.
It is unrealistic to assume that all app developers will make a responsive
design for all possible screen sizes. The tools aren't great and it costs time
and money. We added this field after we received a request from the developer
of a popular game that only worked on desktops, but not mobile phones (due to
size). They wanted to make sure users weren't able to install them in places
the app wasn't designed for and get a bad impression of the company. I think
this is really important.
I think that's fine, but as Scott pointed pointed out, user agents have a
history of allowing users to bypass these kinds of restrictions (or users hack
around them). I think this field can only really serve as a warning that the
app might not work as expected.
Serving as a warning is sufficient, I agree that we will always have
some % of users ignore the warning and install it anyway.
-Anant
