Web APIs Articles
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Record almost everything in the browser with MediaRecorder
The MediaRecorder API lets you record media streams, i.e. moving images and audio. The result of these recordings can be, for example, an OGG file, like the ones you use to listen to music. Browser-wise, we can obtain streams in many ways. Let’s start with something you might be familiar with: we’ll get a stream […]
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Referrer and cache control APIs for fetch()
Around a year ago, we wrote about the new fetch() API. The WHATWG Fetch API provides a modern way to fetch network resources and gives you fine grained control over the details of the request and response. If you’re not familiar with the Fetch API, it would be a nice idea to read about it […]
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Debugging Service Workers and Push with Firefox DevTools
Following the announcement of Web Push in Firefox 44, we’re now delivering the capability to develop and debug service workers and push notifications code with DevTools using Firefox Developer Edition 47. Here’s a screencast that demonstrates the features described in this post: Or if you prefer text, keep reading! about:debugging Service workers do not behave […]
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Web Push Arrives in Firefox 44
Updated, 2016-02-20: The Push service now requires an explicit “TTL” header on requests to an endpoint. The article has been updated to reflect this. More details on the Mozilla Services Blog. Have you ever wished that a website could notify you when something important happened, even if you didn’t have the site open? Maybe you’ve […]
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Web Push notifications from Irssi
Our main communication tool at Mozilla is IRC. I’m running an IRC client called Irssi under screen on a server constantly connected to the network. It’s a close-to-perfect solution with only two outstanding issues for me. One is the lack of emoji characters (I can live with that). The other is more important: there is […]
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Offline Web Apps on GitHub Pages
Service Workers are a response to the problems of Application Cache, and they’re a powerful and elegant way to offline your web app. But they’re also more complex to implement and maintain. Meanwhile, GitHub Pages is a great, simple static host for offline-first apps. But deploying apps to GitHub Pages requires manual configuration, especially if […]
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Keep pushing it, with the W3C Push API
You are all familiar with this experience — a little bubble pops up on your phone without warning, containing a nagging message along the lines of “your insipidly cute little monsters are rested, and want to go and fight more battles!”, or “You’ve got unanswered friend requests from people you don’t know. Hurry up and […]
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Porting Chrome Extensions to Firefox with WebExtensions
After reading last month’s “Let’s Write a Web Extension,” I was inspired to try and port a real-world add-on to a WebExtension. Specifically, I tried to port the Chrome version of the popular, open-source “Reddit Enhancement Suite” (RES) to Firefox. Here’s what I learned, and what you can do today to prepare your own add-ons […]
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Let’s Write a Web Extension
You might have heard about Mozilla’s WebExtensions, our implementation of a new browser extension API for writing multiprocess-compatible add-ons. Maybe you’ve been wondering what it was about, and how you could use it. Well, I’m here to help! I think the MDN’s WebExtensions docs are a pretty great place to start: WebExtensions are a new […]
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Stereoscopic Rendering in WebVR
At Mozilla, a small recon team has been toying with the idea of blending the best features of the web such as interconnectedness, permissionless content creation, and safe execution of remote code with the immersive interaction model of Virtual Reality. By starting out with support for Oculus’s DK2 headset, we’ve enabled those interested to begin […]