Firefox OS for Desktop PCs? WebIDE Makes it Possible!

Long time ago, before Mozilla launched its Firefox OS phones, there was a Firefox OS simulator for your Firefox browser.  I had installed it back then and tested it.  It was fun; indeed, thanks to it, I met Om-Nom, the fun creature of the popular game "Cut the Rope."

Today, when I tried to run the simulator, I got a message that it was outdated and that I should try WebIDE for more up to date versions of Mozilla's phone OS.

I didn't know anything about WebIDE.  It sounded pretty technical to me, who just wanted to run a little game called "Spooky Cats."

Fortunately, Mozilla made WebIDE simple enough for someone like me to understand it and use it...at least to reach my humble goal.

How to use WebIDE?

This is what WebIDE looks like

Basically, on Firefox 33 or later, we must go to the menu "Tools" and then "Web Developer" to select WebIDE.  The shortcut is SHIFT + F8.



Once the WebIDE is open, we must download and install a runtime.  I chose Firefox OS 2.2.  The process was as simple as a click.



The rest is equally simple:  Choose the runtime you installed and run it.

Once I got my Firefox OS simulator, I went straight to the marketplace to locate the game I was looking for.  It was not hard to find it:

This is Firefox OS 2.2 running on my laptop!

Then, I installed it.  That was again extremely simple.

But there was a little problem: the game was meant to work horizontally!

Controlling the game like that was not only awkward but almost impossible, at least for an ocassional gamer like me.

Clicking on the round arrow buttons to move your character was unnatural and hard, not to mention that I also had to resize the phone window to be able to see what was going on.


This seemed pretty much like a no-go...

Until I noticed the little arrow button on the lower right corner of the window.

I clicked on that button and...

Problem solved!  The orientation of the phone screen changed and that also enabled my arrow keys and the space bar on the game.  Now I can play the game on my laptop as easily as it could get.

Some people criticize Mozilla for different reasons and dislike Firefox.  So far, I haven't found a browser that lets you do as many things as Firefox does.