PWA

[FlorianDevPhynix]

I like adding link aggregator sites like dev.to to my phone Home Screen. It would be great to also have those for frontpage.
Sadly I have never configured a PWA so I have no idea how to do that. If nobody else has time to look into this, I could start doing some research.

[tom-sherman]

Hey!

We have some far off future plans to build a native apps, would that solve the same problem for you? We're unlikely to implement a PWA in the current codebase, but another thing we're planning to do in the future is offer a stable AppView API which would allow for third party clients that could implement PWA behaviour.

I'm going to convert this issue to a discussion so we can continue the conversation there ☺️

[tom-sherman]

I don't think we'd accept PRs for this right now, mostly because we have limited time and resources and need to be really careful about the things we take on to maintain right now.

As mentioned before though, an open and stable API is on the roadmap and so this kind of client could exist in the ecosystem.

[FlorianDevPhynix]

Here's an example manifest from daily.dev. (Also build with Next.Js)

{
    "name": "daily.dev",
    "short_name": "daily.dev",
    "icons": [
        {
            "src": "/android-chrome-192x192.png",
            "sizes": "192x192",
            "type": "image/png",
            "purpose": "any"
        },
        {
            "src": "/android-chrome-512x512.png",
            "sizes": "512x512",
            "type": "image/png",
            "purpose": "any"
        },
        {
            "src": "/maskable_icon.png",
            "sizes": "512x512",
            "type": "image/png",
            "purpose": "maskable"
        }
    ],
    "theme_color": "#151618",
    "background_color": "#151618",
    "start_url": "/?pwa=true",
    "display": "standalone",
    "orientation": "portrait"
}

There also seem to be some backwards compatibility metadata tags in daily.dev's html head.

<meta name="theme-color" content="#0E1217" data-next-head="">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="#0E1217" data-next-head="">
<meta name="application-name" content="daily.dev" data-next-head="">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" data-next-head="">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-title" content="daily.dev" data-next-head="">
<meta name="mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" data-next-head="">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-touch-icon.png" data-next-head="">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon-32x32.png" data-next-head="">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon-16x16.png" data-next-head="">
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" data-next-head="">

This is mostly for older iOS and Safari versions so I think it's not that important.

[FlorianDevPhynix]

I don't think we'd accept PRs for this right now, mostly because we have limited time and resources and need to be really careful about the things we take on to maintain right now.

As mentioned before though, an open and stable API is on the roadmap and so this kind of client could exist in the ecosystem.

Ok, I also sadly do not see any way that I could add this manifest myself.
Maybe in some really hacky way, but I guess I'm just going to wait for the native app.

[codegod100]

We have some far off future plans to build a native apps

what framework? react native?

[will-corrigan]

Haven't really got anything concrete, I'm working on learning some react native in the background. It'll likely be with expo/rn though yeah.

[tom-sherman]

@FlorianDevPhynix just wanted to update to say that we've now landed a basic manifest, just to improve the experience of using the installed app somewhat.

2d69054

We're not planning to add PWA capabilities right now though (as mentioned we have a native app planned for this), but hopefully it'll allow you to at least install it to your home screen now.

[FlorianDevPhynix]

This works perfectly. Thank you very much!