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What PWA Can Do Today

whatpwacando.today

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Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#41

Post by scarface_74 »

sberder wrote: post #18
JimDabell wrote: post #13

This should have big warnings on it. Some of these are not web standards; they are features implemented unilaterally by Google in Blink that have been explicitly rejected by both Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds. Take Web Bluetooth, for example: Mozilla: > This model is unsustainable and presents a significant risk to users and their devices. — https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluet…

Thanks for putting it in context, the Bluetooth API has been a big source of frustration in my exploration of PWAs. So many simple setup apps wouldn't need to be native. A cross platform Bluetooth API for the web would provide really easy PoC with MCUs.

Yes I really want random websites to have access to Bluetooth

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#42

Post by lolinder »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #40
lolinder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "extinguish" is what happens after a substantial portion of the web is only accessible through Chrome. At some point it no longer makes sense to use a different web browser, and when we reach that point the open web is gone.

If bluetooth is so essential that a substantial portion of the web will rely on it, then maybe other browsers should support it.

You're still focused on the Bluetooth, but that's just one tiny part of a larger pattern of Google ignoring the rest of the vendors and doing what they want. The death of the web, if it occurs, will be death by a thousand cuts.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#43

Post by [deleted] »

JimDabell wrote: post #13

This should have big warnings on it. Some of these are not web standards; they are features implemented unilaterally by Google in Blink that have been explicitly rejected by both Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds. Take Web Bluetooth, for example: Mozilla: > This model is unsustainable and presents a significant risk to users and their devices. — https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluet…

[deleted]

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#44

Post by taknil »

SPBS wrote: post #25

Call me back when PWAs can be registered as share targets on iOS (i.e. it appears as an app on the share sheet when you click "share" on a web page). I really want the ability to bookmark sites I browse on my phone and save it to a self-hosted web application.

this is foreseen to come eventually, the APIs are there https://web.dev/articles/web-share?hl=en

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#45

Post by throwawaymaths »

starfox64_ wrote: post #4

It's kinda sad that the website doesn't prominently display which features have "universal" support across iOS and Android. The whole point of PWAs is to provide cross platforms apps so if a feature isn't available on all/most platforms, I don't think it's fair to say that it's really usable at all in your PWA.

Depends. What if your PWA is an in-house app for operators in your company? They all have an issued device with MDM, one or a few skus, all apple (or all Google).

I think most in-house devs would rather not deal with the app store or the vagaries of getting the MDM side loading pathway working

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#46

Post by wojciechpolak »

SPBS wrote: post #25

Call me back when PWAs can be registered as share targets on iOS (i.e. it appears as an app on the share sheet when you click "share" on a web page). I really want the ability to bookmark sites I browse on my phone and save it to a self-hosted web application.

Web Share Target API (manifest: share_target) - it allows a website to specify itself as a share target. Of course, it's not yet supported on iOS.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#48

Post by pjmlp »

starfox64_ wrote: post #4

It's kinda sad that the website doesn't prominently display which features have "universal" support across iOS and Android. The whole point of PWAs is to provide cross platforms apps so if a feature isn't available on all/most platforms, I don't think it's fair to say that it's really usable at all in your PWA.

PWAs are the next step in mobile Web, for most forms over data apps, it isn't really needed.

When I came back to Web/Distributed Systems after my stint dealing with Windows desktop, all the applications I have been involved only had Web frontends, including for mobile devices, not Web views, the actual browser.

They managed perfectly fine.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#49

Post by ajross »

starfox64_ wrote: post #4

It's kinda sad that the website doesn't prominently display which features have "universal" support across iOS and Android. The whole point of PWAs is to provide cross platforms apps so if a feature isn't available on all/most platforms, I don't think it's fair to say that it's really usable at all in your PWA.

Doesn't https://caniuse.com already fill this need? This article is just evangelism, if you want technical sources the community has had you covered for a long time.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#50

Post by jwells89 »

fidotron wrote: post #33
jwells89 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The front end framework mess is just a symptom of the actual problem, which is that the building blocks provided by browsers are too crude/limited to allow for consistent quality, and so Rube Goldberg machine frameworks arise to try to paper it all over. I think browsers can be a good platform but for that to happen they need to be a bit more batteries-included, with built in APIs for UI and other essentials that riv…

Honestly, I believe you have this backwards; the problem with browsers is they are too flexible and complicated. If you delivered a consistent MVC framework in the style of the classic NeXT APIs the major complaint would be the imposed look and feel, which from the point-of-view of a user is a feature, but for whatever reason people are drawn like moths to a flame towards that which is at the edge of reasonably possi…

It depends on what part of browsers are being spoken about. They’re plenty flexible and capable for the case of traditional pages and server-side apps, but it’s a totally different story for interactive widgets and especially full blown SPA’s.

For example, browsers don’t furnish a tableview/datagrid or even a basic single column recycler view, meaning one has to find a third party library to do those things that’s still maintained, fits into your stack, and has holes in functionality that are tolerable for the use case in question, or if none meet those criteria write it themselves. The result is a million reimplementations of the same thing nearly all of which have major shortcomings (some of which are present only because they aren’t implemented as a native browser control).

I totally get that styling is a pivotal part of web apps but I think that can be maintained without requiring devs to build castles from grains of sand instead of giving them more appropriate building materials to use.

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