DEV Community

Cover image for Making a PWA doesn't have to be scary
Ste Griffiths
Ste Griffiths

Posted on

Making a PWA doesn't have to be scary

My First PWA

A Progressive Web App is a website which you can pin to your homescreen and use offline like an app. To make a website into a PWA, you have to add some metadata and a script. I'm gonna boil these down to the absolute minimum - this example is a simple single page app with just an index.html.

tl;dr You can find my app's source on Glitch at https://glitch.com/~shopsum

Shopsum screenshot in Android

1. Your site must be HTTPS

Tough but true. If you can't get HTTPS set up easily on your host, consider moving to Netlify, GitHub pages, Azure Websites, or even Glitch. All of these are HTTPS by default and most are free!

2. Add a manifest.json and link to it from your HTML

Here is a minimal example file:

{
  "name"              : "MyApp",
  "short_name"        : "MyApp",
  "description"       : "Faith, hope, love",
  "start_url"         : "/",
  "display"           : "standalone",
  "orientation"       : "any",
  "background_color"  : "#FFF",
  "theme_color"       : "#FFF",
  "icons": [
    {
      "src"           : "/img/android-icon-512.png",
      "sizes"         : "512x512",
      "type"          : "image/png"
    }
  ]
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You don't need an icon, but if you have one, edit the icons/src above. You can add more icons at other sizes.

The display can be:

  • fullscreen (like a game)
  • standalone (like a native app)
  • minimal-ui (has some browser controls)
  • browser (like a browser tab)

3. Add a Service Worker

Don't panic, it's easy!

If your site already has a main.js or client.js or some script that runs on the page, add this statement:

if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
  navigator.serviceWorker.register('/sw.js');
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

...or else, create a new <script> tag on the page and pop that into it!

Now add a sw.js file to the project matching the location you just registered above:

const version = 'v1';

self.addEventListener('install', function(event) {
  event.waitUntil(
    caches.open(version).then(function(cache) {
      return cache.addAll([
        '/',
        '/index.html',
        '/style.css',
        '/tachyons.css',
        '/vue.js',
        '/script.js',
        '/notfound.txt'
      ]);
    })
  );
});

self.addEventListener('fetch', function(event) {
  event.respondWith(caches.match(event.request).then(function(response) {
    // caches.match() always resolves
    // but in case of success response will have value
    if (response !== undefined) {
      return response;
    } else {
      return fetch(event.request).then(function (response) {
        // response may be used only once
        // we need to save clone to put one copy in cache
        // and serve second one
        let responseClone = response.clone();

        caches.open(version).then(function (cache) {
          cache.put(event.request, responseClone);
        });
        return response;
      }).catch(function () {
        return caches.match('/notfound.txt');
      });
    }
  }));
});
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

...and amend the list of files registered by the cache.addAll statement to fit your web app.

4. You did it! πŸ‘

Your site is now offline enabled!

Offline users will only have access to the assets you listed above. So if your setup is more complex, you'll have to decide where to draw the line. The Service Worker is a robot script that decides how to get resources for the user when they're offline; Mariko did the best Service Worker explainer ever with cute illustrations to explain what it does.

If you want to make a dedicated 'Oops, you're offline' page, there are other guides for that! (See Sources below)

When you make changes to your app, you have to change the version variable to refresh clients! This can be annoying. Probably someone out there knows a better way! πŸ˜…

Sources

I drew on this SitePoint guide, Retrofit Your Website as a Progressive Web App which was pretty simple but not simple enough. MDN's Service Workers Demo was great because they gave source code of exactly what I wanted to do (so my sw.js is basically cribbed from them - here's their GitHub source)

Thanks

Thanks for reading. I hope this extremely stripped-down guide was useful for you!

Top comments (4)

Collapse
 
pramodghuge profile image
Pramod Ghuge

Thanks for the simple tut. It's on my to-do now.

Collapse
 
stegriff profile image
Ste Griffiths

Thanks Pramod! I hope it works out for you.

Collapse
 
rohovdmytro profile image
Rohov Dmytro • Edited

The scariest part is not making, but maintaining a PWA. πŸ˜€ Sometimes too tricky and adventurous. πŸ˜€

Collapse
 
stegriff profile image
Ste Griffiths

A good insight - I guess that's my next step :) Thanks for the comment RG!