What PWA Can Do Today • Hacker News Board

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#281

Post by int_19h » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 12:35 AM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #229

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tabbed isnt enough for me. I don't want an app. I want a website. I want my user-agent! My user agent is what I know, affords me URLs & extensions and a powerful UI with lots of options. The PWA thing seems sick to me. Henry Ford listens to market research and rebuilds his car as a mechanized horse. For me, the UX is strictly worse in every way. (And I already knew how to put links to webpages on my home screens). Th…

I assume I'm being down voted by pro-native people for calling their preferred tech descending losing old-guard technologies. Does anyone actually have any comments or reactions to what I was actually arguing about? PWAs being such brutal downgrade over what the web browser offers seems glaringly obvious to me; I'm shocked there's not more outcry. If people actually feel otherwise, please leave some arguments out in…

For things that make sense as a websites, sure, I do want a website.

But some websites really are apps, and browser-oriented chrome just gets in the way.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#282

Post by int_19h » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 12:38 AM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #254

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not random websites though. They're apps that you have installed. And given permissions to. The gatekeeping/FUD/wringing-of-pewrls over this seems absurd, cruel, and most of all arbitrary to me. Insubstantial naysaying.

I have never heard and end user say - “you know Electron apps are so great on the desktop, it would be really great if all apps on phones were PWAs.”

PWAs don't have one of the major downsides of Electron, which is bloat - you don't have to package the huge runtime yourself.

That aside, sure, I'll always take a native app if I can have it. But providing native apps across all major desktop and mobile platforms is a lot of effort, especially for small businesses and hobbyists. In that case, a PWA is vastly better than nothing at all, or a native app for one particular platform that just happens to be the one you don't use.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#283

Post by int_19h » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 12:39 AM UTC

palata wrote: post #91

PWAs to me sound like "we want everyone to use the same OS (in this case something like ChromeOS), because that's more productive for us". I get that Google pushes for PWAs because that's how they conquer the OS world. But why do individuals push for that? Because they don't know anything other than webtech and don't want to learn? Have a look at Kotlin and Swift guys, it's kinda cool!

Except Microsoft is also actively pushing for PWAs, and Win11 integration of them is pretty nice.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#284

Post by amadeuspagel » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 7:07 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #280

amadeuspagel wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point of PWAs on desktop. I find it much easier to open a website from the addressbar then to open an "app" using spotlight. I always have a browser window open anyway.

Same reason why you might prefer to use an app over a website in general. I use PWAs a lot on Windows, and for me the single biggest benefit is that they don't clutter my browser tabs, but instead show up as separate icons that I can Alt+Tab to, see in taskbar along with their notifications, move and resize the window as I see fit etc. Sure, I could also run them in separate browser windows, but then window managemen…

But I don't prefer using an app over a website in general. For me, the biggest benefit of tabs is is that they don't clutter my task bar or my workspaces and that I can ctrl+tab through them.

Re: What PWA Can Do Today

#285

Post by int_19h » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 11:08 PM UTC

amadeuspagel wrote: post #284

int_19h wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason why you might prefer to use an app over a website in general. I use PWAs a lot on Windows, and for me the single biggest benefit is that they don't clutter my browser tabs, but instead show up as separate icons that I can Alt+Tab to, see in taskbar along with their notifications, move and resize the window as I see fit etc. Sure, I could also run them in separate browser windows, but then window managemen…

But I don't prefer using an app over a website in general. For me, the biggest benefit of tabs is is that they don't clutter my task bar or my workspaces and that I can ctrl+tab through them.

What does it even mean to "clutter" a taskbar if you exclusively use websites? i.e. what is the point of a taskbar devoid of apps other than the browser?

In-app tabs are supposed to be the second level of grouping, hence why it gets its own shortcut. What you're describing is an attempt to flatten that hierarchy, which is a valid approach, but why are you surprised that not everybody shares your enthusiasm for it?