A couple of days ago we asked for your feedback and questions on the Webinar, and we got a lot of both! Thank you all, and keep it coming!
Here’s the first set of answers to some of the questions that were asked. We’re still working on answering more of them, so stay tuned.
First, we had a lot of questions on the documentation, when it’ll be available, and what will be in it. The documentation will be available at the same time as the SDK. We decided to release the rough cuts chapter and hold the webinar to provide a preview to the sdk but there are no plans currently to release more information ahead of the sdk.
Q: I was hoping to get clarification on a passage in the first chapter of the book about uninstalling applications,
This includes removing it from the launcher and any local application data, plus any data added to the Palm application databases such as Contacts or Calendar data.
A: Yes, that was unclear and we’re working on revising it. The current draft of the revision is:
The user can opt to remove an application and its data from the device. When the user attempts to delete an application, the system will stop the application if needed and remove its components from the device. This includes removing it from the launcher and any local application data, plus any data that the application might have created in the Palm application databases such as added Contacts or Calendar records.
Q: Will the (HTML/Javascript/noncompiledwhatever) source code for all client-side applications be available for any device owner to see?
A: Mitch discussd this during the Q&A of the webinar and we don’t have anything more to add at this time.
Q: It would be great if webOS had some sort of certificate check when trying to install app and warn the user if it is not certified but still leave it up to the user to install it. This way you would have a sort of disclaimer that proceeding with non-certified apps is at users’ risk but at the same time allow in-house and experimental/beta development, test and distribution
of the apps. This will also allow third parties to promote their apps directly.
A: Applications installed on a webOS device will be signed with a digital certificate that will identify it and its publisher. The details of this program are not final and we’ll go into more detail on the process at a later date.
Q: Should we have a business (with an ID number) for selling applications on your Applications Store? Or will be freelancing is enough? I need to know if I should open a business now?
A: We are not ready to disclose the business elements of the application catalog, and these may vary by geography and over time.
Q: The SDK (especially the emulator) will run on what OS? Mac? Windows? Linux?
A: The development environment will run on MacOS, Windows and Linux.
Q: I love jQuery. Please let us know if it’ll work.
A: jQuery should work fine. We’re still evaluating which libraries and framework will be formally tested with webOS, and once that’s final we’ll document that.
Q: What localization support is built into the OS? will there be built-in support for BiDi (RTL) languages such as Hebrew, Arabic ?
A: WebOS has internationalization and localization support but beyond that we are not yet announcing when specific languages or locales will be supported.