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https://github.com/chromium/ballista

An interoperability system for the modern web.
https://github.com/chromium/ballista

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An interoperability system for the modern web.

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README 

        
# Ballista



**Date**: 2015-09-25

**Updated**: 2019-11-08



![A ballista](docs/images/ballista-300.png)



**Ballista** was a project to explore inter-website and web/native

communication; specifically, communication between one website and another site

or native app of the user's choosing. We explored ways for the user to be able

to *share* or *edit* documents in another website or app that the first website

has never even heard of, *choose* documents from another website, or register a

website as a *native file handler*. We were attempting to solve similar problems

to the intents system on Android, but also address other use cases like document

editing. Essentially, we set out to create an **interoperability system for the

web**.



Our [explainer document](docs/explainer.md) dives deeper into the problem space

and outlines our early draft of an API that we thought solved this problem. But

this was less about proposing an API, and more about starting a conversation.



Epilogue (2019): The Ballista project started in 2015 as an ambitious

exploration of the above concepts. The project evolved into a number of more

specialized and smaller proposals to achieve these goals, several of which are

now generally available. These include [Web

Share](https://github.com/w3c/web-share), [Web Share

Target](https://github.com/WICG/web-share-target) and [File

Handling](https://github.com/WICG/file-handling).



## Spin-off proposals



These standards-track proposals were created as a result of the explorations

begun in the Ballista project:



* [Web Share](https://github.com/w3c/web-share).

* [Web Share Target](https://github.com/WICG/web-share-target).

* [File Handling](https://github.com/WICG/file-handling).



## Demo



We have a prototype that works in Chrome and Firefox. Try this:



1. Go to

   [handler-dot-chromium-ballista.appspot.com](https://handler-dot-chromium-ballista.appspot.com)

   (Ballista Editor Demo), and click "OK" to register it as an action handler.

2. Go to

   [requester-dot-chromium-ballista.appspot.com](https://requester-dot-chromium-ballista.appspot.com)

   (Ballista Cloud Demo), and open a file with "Ballista Editor Demo".



These two apps don't know about each other, yet the editor can edit files from

the cloud app. Using our polyfill, you can write a web app that interoperates

with our demo apps in the same way.



You can view and manage app registrations at

[chromium-ballista.appspot.com](https://chromium-ballista.appspot.com). In the

final product, the registration, picking and management UI would be part of the

browser.



## Resources



* For a detailed overview, see [Ballista Explained](docs/explainer.md).

* In the [`polyfill`](polyfill) directory, there is a polyfill that you can use

  to write a requester that can fire actions at any handler, or a handler that

  can receive actions from any requester.

* The [`handler`](handler) and [`requester`](requester) directories contain the

  source code for the demo apps described above.



See the `README.md` file in each directory for details. Many caveats apply.



## Who is behind Ballista?



The Google Chrome team, including:



* Matt Giuca <>

* Sam McNally <>

* Ben Wells <>



This is not an official Google product (experimental or otherwise), it is just

code that happens to be owned by Google.



Copyright 2016 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.



Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");

you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

You may obtain a copy of the License at



> 



Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software

distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,

WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

limitations under the License.