Firefox OS app tools

This page provides a list of useful tools, libraries, examples, etc. that are useful for Firefox OS app developers, whether you want a code template to copy, or need help with adding a specific feature to your Firefox OS app.

Note: For more details of Firefox OS-centric debugging/developer tools, check out Debugging apps.

Firefox OS-specific tools

This section details available Firefox OS-specific code templates, libraries, snippets, and plugins.

Boilerplate code

WebIDE templates: WebIDE enables you to run and debug Firefox OS apps, using the Firefox OS Simulator or a real Firefox OS device. WebIDE comes with a set of ready-to-use templates.

Firefox OS boilerplate app: This is a demo app for Firefox OS, which provides simple boilerplate code showing usage of various features of Firefox OS, such as Web activities, packaged apps, offline apps, APIs such as Battery, Notification, Vibration, Geolocation, and more.
FXOSSTUB: This is a minimal working template for Firefox OS applications. This is not as comprehensive as the Boilerplate App but it provides a nice, easy-to-use, and reconfigurable template for building your first application. All explanations and two versions of the template can be found here.
Mortar: A comprehensive collection of templates to kickstart app development, brought to you by the friendly people from the Mozilla Apps Engineering team. You can find a good guide to using Mortar templates on the Hacks blog.
Dart Firefox OS boilerplate app: A full port of the Firefox OS Boilerplate app in Dart, with documentation, tests and examples for Dart.
Translation tester: An app designed to test translations for Firefox OS apps, as well as providing a blueprint for adding translation support to your own apps.

Libraries

fxosRate: fxosRate is a library to help the promotion of your Firefox Marketplace apps by encouraging application users to rate the application. The library decides on the best moment to ask users to rate the app, based on a set of parameters.
Open external links in new window: A library allowing you to automatically open external links in a new window when your web app runs in a chromeless runtime. This is especially useful for Firefox OS and iOS web apps, but works on the whole modern web (latest version here).
Moz polyfills: A set of polyfills for Web Activities and HTML5 APIs to make them work in other browsers (try the demo in your browser).
fxpay: A JavaScript library to support Firefox Marketplace payments in a web application (Documention here).
Concierge: A responsive UI component for installing open web apps via the browser.
Memory-Stats.js/Stats.js: Libraries to monitor the performance of web pages.

Snippets

Check Firefox OS version: A snippet for checking the current Firefox OS version. Go to the discussion on StackOverflow for suggestions or problem solutions.
Detect platform: Firefox Desktop/Firefox for Android/Firefox OS: A snippet that uses user agent sniffing for browser/system detection. Go to the discussion on StackOverflow for suggestion or problem solutions.

Command Line Tools

node-fxos: Node tools for Firefox OS: fxos-deploy, fxos-start, fxos-simulators, fx-ports, fxos-reloadcss, and fxos-findapp. There is also a Gulp and Grunt example (see air.mozilla.org talk).

Plugins

Firefox OS Bookmark for WordPress: A plugin allowing you to transform a WordPress site into a hosted open web app. This creates the necessary manifest.webapp file for installing your site as a hosted app on Firefox OS, Firefox for Desktop and Firefox for Android.

General Web frameworks with Firefox OS support

Cordova: Apache Cordova (the framework that powers Adobe's PhoneGap tool) supports Firefox OS as an output target. Learn more about it at Cordova support for Firefox OS. See also Jason Weathersby's Cordova sample app.
EnyoJS: Enyo has Firefox OS support. Read Firefox OS support lands in EnyoJS 2.2 for more details.
Flambe: The Flambe game engine provides the ability to package its output as Firefox OS apps. Read Flambe Provides Support For Firefox OS for more information.
Intel App Framework: Intel's mobile app framework provides Firefox OS support. Read App Framework and Firefox OS for more details.
Marmalade SDK: The Marmalade cross-platform C++ SDK has added Web support for Firefox OS.

Other useful resources

Protecting your Firefox OS code: This Hacks article provides Firefox OS code obfuscation tips — a common request in our help forums.
Firefox OS app basics: This series of screencasts provides a very useful introduction to app writing on Firefox OS.
Firefox app localization on Transifex: This page on the Transifex site provides a "localization exchange" to match developers needing localization help with volunteer localizers.
Mozilla Stack Overflow Q&A: A great place to ask questions about Firefox OS, Firefox developer tools, and Web app development.
Spoof FxOS: Even without a Firefox OS smartphone you can now do some testing and debugging of how a website is likely to work on Firefox OS devices, by installing this add-on in Firefox on an Android phone.