Introduction to Gaia

Gaia is the user interface for Boot to Gecko (B2G); it's a set of Web applications that runs locally on a B2G device, emulator, desktop build, or Firefox build. All you need to know in order to add apps or make changes to Gaia are Web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

The Gaia lock screen

The lock screen shows the network carrier, current time and date, and a slidebar allowing the user to unlock the phone or go straight to the camera to take a picture. If the user has got a passcode lock set, the lock screen will also show a passcode entry interface.

Note that on some devices the passcode is enabled by default; in these cases the default PIN to unlock the device is "0000". This most likely will change over time as this feature is fleshed out.

The default Gaia interface

The default interface in Gaia, as seen here, is similar to what you see on most typical smartphones.

This image is obviously of a prerelease version of the operating system, with placeholder icons (and some test applications). The status bar at the top indicates the network on which the phone is operating (or "No SIM card" for a device without any network), the network strength, WiFi signal strength, battery level, and current time.

The middle area of the display shows icons for the applications; swiping left and right pages through screens of icons. You can find more about the default suite of apps that comes with Gaia on our Gaia apps page.

At the bottom of the screen is a dock with room for up to seven of your most commonly used applications. You can drag and drop apps to the dock from the middle area.

See also

  • Gaia apps: This page includes further information about each app, such as how to use them, and how to modify them.
  • Developer settings: An explanation of the different developer settings that you can enable via the Gaia Settings app.

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 Last updated by: chrisdavidmills,