[Q] Customizing GUI in simulator? - Firefox OS Q&A

Hi
Need to know something rudimentary.
Is it possible to design/modify the look and feel of the Firefox OS from the device simulator? Not the apps, but the entire Firefox OS GUI.
Thanks.

---

arjunm009 said:
Hi
Need to know something rudimentary.
Is it possible to design/modify the look and feel of the Firefox OS from the device simulator? Not the apps, but the entire Firefox OS GUI.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi arjunm009,
FirefoxOS development name is b2g (boot2gecko) there is a beautiful diagram on Mozilla's pages advising how the layers work, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Platform/Architecture
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Gonk is the Hardware Abstraction Layer for the drivers
Gecko is the Rendering Engine
Gaia is the GUI, and the part you are interested in.
It is possible to modify Gaia, and Mozilla have a very detailed guide located just here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developing_Gaia
You can also grab the B2G source code and only pull down Gaia this would then let you modify, or even fix and pass back upstream to Mozilla.
You would then need a way to get your changes into the emulator, you can do this on a live device by entering the Gaia directory and typing make gaia, and then reset gaia.
However, on the emulator Mozilla offer the following detailed tutorial on how to see your gui changes in realtime on the emulator running on Firefox:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developing_Gaia/Making_Gaia_code_changes

---

thanks a lot. this would get me started.