Progressive Web Apps

@nolanlawson

What is a
"progressive web app"?

Nebulous term, somewhat like:

Ajax
Responsive
Mobile-first
etc.

Coined by Alex Russell of Google

https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-tabs-without-losing-our-soul/

Alex Russell

What makes a progressive web app?

Native-like characteristics
Promoted by browser chrome

Native-like characteristics

Works offline
Launches from home screen
Hides URL bar
Branded colors
"First class" treatment in OS
Push notifications (optional)
Background sync (optional)

Hamster break

Promoted by browser chrome

"Add to home screen?" popup

Chrome

Opera

Firefox

The install banner is a carrot

source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Mini-Donks_%26_Carrots!.jpg

https://medium.com/@slightlylate/mmmmmmm-carrots-6b3a53719008#.ece5xoohm

How do we eat that sweet, sweet carrot?

Requirements for the install banner

Web Manifest file

short_name
URL
PNG icon

Service Worker
HTTPS

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/03/increasing-engagement-with-app-install-banners-in-chrome-for-android

Web App Manifest

Say goodbye to this garbage

Web Manifest file

<head>
<!-- ... -->
  <link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">
<!-- ... -->
</head>

http://w3c.github.io/manifest/

Manifest JSON file

{
  "short_name":       "Pokedex.org",
  "name":             "Pokedex.org",
  "display":          "standalone",
  "start_url":        "index.html?launcher=true",
  "theme_color":      "#a040a0",
  "background_color": "#EEEEEE",
  "icons": [
    { "src": "img/icon-48.png",  "sizes": "48x48",   "type": "image/png" },
    { "src": "img/icon-96.png",  "sizes": "96x96",   "type": "image/png" },
    { "src": "img/icon-144.png", "sizes": "144x144", "type": "image/png" },
    { "src": "img/icon-196.png", "sizes": "196x196", "type": "image/png" }
  ]
}

Service Worker

Bad old days: App Cache

CACHE MANIFEST
# rev 2016-04-28 08:44:48 -0400

CACHE:
/adapters.html
/api.html
/static/css/pouchdb.css
/static/favicon.ico
/static/js/code.min.js
/static/img/fauxton.png
/static/img/kittens.jpg
http://code.jquery.com/jquery.min.js
http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lato:400,700|Open+Sans:400,700

NETWORK:
*

Service Worker in a nutshell

Web Worker on steroids
Process/security of Shared Worker
Programmable client-side proxy
HTTPS required (except localhost)

Web Workers vs Service Workers

Source: Blink report on workers

Useful SW tools

sw-precache
sw-toolbox
offline-plugin (webpack)
UpUp

Hamster break

Soft requirements for PWAs

Theme color
App shell
IndexedDB
60FPS animations

http://stackoverflow.com/tags/progressive-web-apps/info

Theme color

<head>
<!-- ... -->
  <meta name=theme-color content=#a040a0>
<!-- ... -->
</head>

https://github.com/whatwg/html/commit/05e4a1f6c4941273baa647b8e889d2db7fd9bd88

Dynamic theme color

var meta = document.head.querySelector('meta[name="theme-color"]');
meta.content = '#4169E1';

App Shell

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/11/app-shell

AKA:

Progressive rendering
Progressive enhancement
Not showing a blank screen w/o JS

Strategies

Server-side HTML

React
Ember Fastboot
Hyperscript (virtual-dom)
etc.

Turn off JS to see effect
Load in 2G to see progressive loading

IndexedDB/WebSQL for data storage

Pokédex IDB

4.0M Chrome / 5.6M Firefox

Why IDB + WebSQL?

IndexedDB libraries

LocalForage
PouchDB
Dexie
YDN-DB
indexeddb-promised

Extra credit: web workers

IDB is fast, but blocks the DOM
Web Workers mitigate this
No IDB+WW in Safari; use pseudo-worker

http://nolanlawson.github.io/database-comparison/
http://nolanlawson.com/2015/09/29/indexeddb-websql-localstorage-what-blocks-the-dom/
https://www.npmjs.com/package/pseudo-worker

60FPS animations

Only use hardware-accelerated:

transform
opacity

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/speed/high-performance-animations/

FLIP animations

Flexibility of JS, performance of CSS
Technique, not a library
First - Last - Invert - Play

https://aerotwist.com/blog/flip-your-animations/

See the Pen FLIP animations demo by Nolan Lawson (@nolanlawson) on CodePen.