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Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

blog.tomayac.com

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Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#91

Post by latexr »

tolmasky wrote: post #25

Can Web Apps use tabs? As in, if I command click a link, will it open in a native tab in the Web App? If they can't, then a bunch of apps I want to use as web apps will have to stay within the main browser unfortunately.

Tested it on the beta, and tabs are not available. The option isn’t there even if you right-click a link. But you can create new windows of the same app.

Under the Window menu there are options to Show Previous Tab, Show Next Tab, and Move Tab to New Window, but they’re all greyed out.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#92

Post by johnbellone »

pavlov wrote: post #85

Usable PWAs on macOS is great news. At the same time, I can’t help think Apple’s sudden interest in making web apps more useful has to do with visionOS. When iOS was brand new, they were talking up web apps because they needed the content. When the platform got established, Apple could tighten the screws and drive developers towards native apps by not supporting the latest web features. Now that they have an upstart…

I'd say it's more likely a way for them to argue that there's an alternative way to publish applications to the device so they can keep big government away from their App Store cashflow.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#93

Post by quic5 »

mrweasel wrote: post #88

I can't seem to figure out if it's possible to run the web apps (PWA) without launching Safari every time. That has been one of my main complaint about Chrome PWAs. Everything I launched Google Chat, Chrome would also start. I get that it's Chrome doing the actual work, but I don't use the browser, so why would I want it on my Dock.

> Observation: Separating Safari and Web App allows both to run independently. You can open a Web app without opening Safari, you can close Safari without all web apps closing.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#94

Post by blairbeckwith »

mrweasel wrote: post #88

I can't seem to figure out if it's possible to run the web apps (PWA) without launching Safari every time. That has been one of my main complaint about Chrome PWAs. Everything I launched Google Chat, Chrome would also start. I get that it's Chrome doing the actual work, but I don't use the browser, so why would I want it on my Dock.

I can confirm that you can run web apps created this way on the developer beta without having Safari running, and if you have both running than quitting Safari will not quit the web app.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#96

Post by blairbeckwith »

guessmyname wrote: post #50
jljljl wrote: post #46

Does using Slack as a Safari Web App reduce resource consumption vs the Electron app? This seems like a huge deal if so

> Does using Slack as a Safari Web App reduce resource consumption vs the Electron app? Yes. Yes it does. This is why “native” apps that use the operating system’s default WebView for the corresponding platform run seamlessly compared to apps packaged with Electron. Safari is has much better performance than any other web browser on macOS, and this change will allow users to access those benefits.

Yes, but...

I know it is an early developer beta, and I haven't even begun to debug it, but Slack running in this method does not perform well. My sent messages frequently show and then get stuck in the grey "sending" text indefinitely after they appear as sent on other devices, and I often don't receive messages in the web app until I force a refresh.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#98

Post by latexr »

graypegg wrote: post #84

If there’s a .app package, does that also mean there’s a signable + distributable app ready to go? If so, good bye electron.

There is a .app (saved to ~/Applications) but there’s no binary inside. The full file structure:

  .
  └── Contents
      ├── Info.plist
      ├── Resources
      │   └── ApplicationIcon.icns
      └── _CodeSignature
          ├── CodeDirectory
          ├── CodeRequirements
          ├── CodeResources
          └── CodeSignature
Looks like all the necessary information is saved inside the Info.plist.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#99

Post by waboremo »

jmull wrote: post #49

> Let web apps programmatically trigger the Add to Dock flow, since the Share icon and the File menu install ways are hard to discover. Please, for the sake of all decency, no! We do NOT need new ways for web sites to badger users. (Sorry to focus on this one thing. This was a great and informative article, with 99% good ideas. I just had a visceral reaction to the idea of yet more ways for sites to harass me as a us…

It's just not good UX to programmatically trigger the dock flow either.

But it does signal an important aspect about the current iteration: the share icon hides way too many choices that don't make any real sense for being under the share icon. This is something Apple should absolutely work on ASAP because it's becoming a bloated list. Seriously, why is find under the share icon? How absurd this has gone on for THIS long.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#100

Post by LoganDark »

jljljl wrote: post #76
LoganDark wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seamlessly? How is Electron not seamless? Because it duplicates the overhead of an entire browser (and Chromium at that) rather than the overhead of a single webpage in an already-open browser?

So overhead for a single app might be comparable, but each subsequent Electron app that I replace with a Safari Web App would use significantly less CPU/RAM

I believe so. I would hope that the overhead for "having more than 0 webviews open" is global across the entire OS; we know that macOS uses a global shared library cache at least.
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