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Firefox OS, being based on HTML/CSS/JavaScript, sounds a lot more hackable than Android to me. Well, you can hack Android pretty heavily - forking CyanogenMod, writing Xposed plugins, etc., but Java is just obscure and the compile/deploy/debug cycle is too cumbersome for casual hacking.

Hence I look forward to Firefox OS as platform I can easily hack, but I am not sure whether it really is. Could someone with experience tell me:

* How easy is it to deploy a FxOS app? How is the remote debugging experience?

* How easy is it to hack the core apps (e.g. phone, SMS)?

* How easy is it to hack the "framework" (e.g. window manager, status bar)? Is it even written in JavaScript?




* deploying apps is super easy - either host them on a web server or push them from firefox's webIDE, and remote debugging using the firefox devtools just works.

* hacking core apps is totally doable. You need a rooted device to update them though. Currently the best ones would be nexus 5 or sony z3(c).

* everything that is displayed is html/js/css. What you call "framework" here is part of the system app (https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/master/apps/system). It's a fairly large app, but it's where a lot of the fun stuff is!


Hijacking this:

Is is possible to replace system parts with 3rd party stuff? I'm mostly talking "change the keyboard" here?

If it is, is this possible by modifying/replacing the current keyboard only or can this be something out of tree?


We support 3rd party keyboards now, so you can provide one out of tree.


Thanks. Now I am really looking forward to playing with FxOS!




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