Firefox OS Background services

Question

I want to build and application through which an user can input some settings and the application will start a background service to perform some tasks based on those settings. I want to run the application and the background service only in the Simulator (I know that it requires "certified" mode for running a background service, but I am not thinking right now for posting the app on Firefox Marketplace).

Can someone provide me with some links or tutorials on how to build and run a background service on FIrefox OS platform? Can anyone also explain how to communicate between the background service and the application? (I have search the MDN and on google, but no luck).

Also, is there some way for application (regular app or background service) to listen for notifications from a server?(I am looking for a method in which the application does not pool, but is notified by the server).

Thanks, Tamash

Answer 1

Can someone provide me with some links or tutorials on how to build and run a background service on FIrefox OS platform?

This is planned of a future version of Firefox OS. See "Background services" at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webapi

Also, is there some way for application (regular app or background service) to listen for notifications from a server?(I am looking for a method in which the application does not pool, but is notified by the server).

This doesn't seem to be implemented yet. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webapi and https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI/SimplePush

Answer 2

The wiki page above is out of date - though it hints at what's coming.

Currently the RequestSync API has landed - it allows scheduled wake-ups for synchronization purposes. This is not an always-on background service. It's planned to ship in the 2.2 release of Firefox OS.

RequestSync is not yet documented on MDN but the implementation bug is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1018320

RequestSync is a partial solution until we have full background synchronization through Service Workers.

Service Workers are in the implementation stage now: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=903441

Draft documentation on MDN is here:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/ServiceWorker_API