what role do unofficial ports have on the official app loader?

hi,

I have a thinking like IBM, such that i want my purchase to have 2 sources of availability -- intel/AMD.

Suppose I am going to obtain a bangle.js v2, and can use the official app loader, and i am going to write some app myself.

I would like to have a backup using unofficial ports, like P8, Magic3 etc

I have tested /w P8b before, and visited jeffmer's https://jeffmer.github.io/WatchApps/, for P8 or Magic3, there are only about 28-38 apps available (but BJ v2 emulator can see about 4xx for BJ v2).
And those 28-38 apps are mostly system apps, not applications, mostly

1. IF those 380 apps are exclusively to PAID users, I believe it is fair. However from discussion of Gordon, Fanoush and Jeffmer, it seems Gordon would like to see those 380 apps also run on unofficial ports, they discuss a file jswrap_bangle.c at https://forum.espruino.com/comments/1621­8562/
   So, is it true that this file is the hurdle to allow unofficial ports to use the 380 apps?

2. SUPPOSE that file is troublesome, no one wants to touch it. Fine.
   However i could dnld those 380 apps' sources from github, and i also got my own app's source code.
   A. for my own code, is it if i have not used hardware-specific coding, I should be able to run them on most if not all unofficial ports?
   B. for those 380 apps, is it the same? with reasonable porting(exclude those that need the above file), i could run them on unofficial ports?

Thank you.

Hi - I have zero problem with those other apps being used on different devices, as long as the method of doing that doesn't make life more difficult for Bangle.js users.

So, is it true that this file is the hurdle to allow unofficial ports to use the 380 apps?

More or less - many apps have hard-coded screen sizes and stuff like that which could make it more difficult, but quite a few should work fine.

Getting jswrap_bangle.c built in would definitely be the best option (it already supports at least 4 different watches, so adding more shouldn't be that bad), but if for some reason it was hard I guess you could fake most of the functionality (slowly) in JS.

for those 380 apps, is it the same? with reasonable porting(exclude those that need the above file), i could run them on unofficial ports?

Yes - although obviously maintaining a port of 380 apps is unlikely to be feasible.