A PWA (Progressive Web App) Discussion

I’ve recently stumbled upon some Progressive Web App (PWA) templates, and have started to learn a bit more about them, and their very app like behavior and capabilities. You can check one out here:

Be sure to view on a mobile device, and add it to your home screen to get a sense of the app like OS integration. I’m wondering could we produce something like this with RW (not just the HTML but all of the necessary bits)? As I understand it there are some specific mobile OS level things that need to be generated and/or added to the code. I’m wondering could RW and perhaps a theme/framwork along with a dedicated stack generate the necessary elements for a mobile OS PWA? I’m just beginning to learn about this approach so please forgive me if this is nonsensical. I would love to hear from some of the developers who likely have deeper understanding of what’s involved. @dan @joeworkman @willwood @isaiah

Probably just a stack that could be developed. I have been coding this by hand for a while. There was a mobile theme at on one time but I forget who built it.

Until this point, the PWAs I have developed have been hand coded with a mixture of HTML, PHP, CSS and ES6 Javascript. I have purposeful opted to stay away from the heavy frameworks like Bootstrap, jQuery, Vue, React and Foundation. This has resulted in faster, simpler and more scalable web apps that fit my needs and the needs of my clients better. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve possibly seen some of what I’ve been working on for private clients in recent months.

There’s no doubting the benefits of developing PWAs, versus developing native Android and iOS apps. Especially for smaller organisations. With the exception of some areas (like graphics editing) I’d say that most web browsers and devices are capable of offering a near-enough full app experience.

RapidWeaver certainly could be used as the basis to create basic PWAs, if you’re preferring to use existing stacks for adding the desired components and functionality to your app. If there was significant interest from this community to see a theme + stack combo for making quality PWAs, then you know where to email me with your ideas :wink:

4 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.