PWA (Progressive web application)

Let’s say you have a website and you want to give your website as mobility experience to your customers. Well you have to consider the PWA. Let’s see how PWA can offer mobility experiences to consumers.

If you visit the website, you will get alert to add to your home screen for this website as a PWA application. If you accept it, the PWA will be installed to your phone and you can access the website through application next time. Cool , I know right !

Although PWA works across both iOS and Android, the specifications of Safari affect which functions iOS users can access. For Android users, PWA can be added via multiple browsers. Also PWA is a project started by Google, and it is quite more compatible with Android.

Let’s discuss some of the core attributes which are missing from common non-progressive web applications.

1. Reliable
   The app should be lightning fast when loading, it should be close to instantaneous and should also open when there is no network or fairly low-speed network.
3. Fast
   The scrolls and page transitions should be buttery smooth when the user is interacting with the web app. Everyone hates crappy scrolls.
4. Responsive
   The app should fit in all the different sizes of devices. The perfect web app should be like liquid, which takes the shape of its vessel.
5. Installable
   If we want to make web apps closer to the native apps, they have to be installable and should reside in the home screen along with other native apps, so that the user can access the PWA in one click.
6. Splash Screen
   PWA adds a splash screen during the startup of the app. This makes the PWA feel more like a native app.

As an addition, all you need to setup PWA is that you just have to know some Javascript. PWA has some important technical components which work together and energizes the regular web app.

1. Service worker
2. manifest json
3. And your site need to be in https.

These are the important things to setup your PWA.

Service Worker

Our web apps talk to the network directly and if there is no network, the screen shows the famous dinosaur. For the first-time load, the service worker stores the required resources in the browser cache. And when the user visits the app next time, the service workers check the cache and returns the response to the user before even checking the network.

Manifest Json File

The manifest file is a config JSON file which contains the information of your application, like the icon to be displayed on the home screen when installed, the short name of the application, background color, or theme.

Https

Service workers have the ability to intercept the network requests and can modify the responses. Service workers perform all the actions on the client side. Hence, PWA requires secure protocol HTTPS.

Here is the official documentation to build PWA from google.
https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/your-first-pwapp/#0

By Yuuma