What is PWA?
PWA – Progressive Web App an amalgamation of mobile app & website that brings the best of both and gives the users an amazing experience. A progressive web application development has to ascertain that it meets the basic requirements for giving you an app like feel.
Progressive Web Apps will work well as it’s built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet. It is not depended on your locations and browsers anymore.
So, PWA is a browser mobile web applications which automatically sync the web content with your mobile app. It loads all the content in the mobile browser everytime you make any changes in the website. PWA is a collection of different technologies, designing concepts and web APIs through which we can get an app-like experience on a mobile browser.
How are these different from the web application and Native apps?
~ Responsive: Progressive Web Apps are totally responsive to any device. The device can be any like desktop, a mobile, a tablet, or even something that hasn’t been created yet, it is a perfect fit for all these devices.
~ Updated: Using service provider, your PWA is always up-to-date with the latest code. Means like an app, If you want to update code, then you need to create it and send a request to users to download the newly updated app. But in PWA, there is no need to send any kind of update request to the users. Whenever you upload code/patch on the server, it will directly sync with the user’s device.
~ Secure: PWA is always served using HTTPS (http will work well in development environment). So no one can interlope without proper authentication.
~ Easy to find: Using worker registration scope of PWA allows search engines to find them easily.
~ Push Notification: PWA has a functionality to implement Push notifications. So the user can easily connect to the application.
~ Installation: PWA installation is very easy. Just open the website ->Add to home screen. By this website will access from home screen without any hassles go to app store and download it. Then install it and access it.
~ Independent of connectivity: Using Service workers, you can access PWA on a slow connection or offline too.
Frameworks for developing a PWA:
Rail is a complete framework
a. Comes with many solutions and box tools like database communication, schema migrations, email sending/receiving, WebSockets, internalization, caching, API mode and good security defaults.
b. MVS s/w architecture
c. Includes third-party components
d. Supported by DevOps services
Frontend framework :
a. React HN (Universal rendering, Offline caching, optimizations)
b. React + Webpack application using the PRPL pattern
c. Vue.js PWA using the PRPL pattern
d. Ember Zuperkul blog (FastBoot + optimizations)
e. Angular 2 Weather (Angular Mobile Toolkit + Angular Universal + Offline compilation)
f. Angular 1 Dribbble (Cherry app)
g. Angular 2 Dribbble (Berry app)
Testing tool
Lighthouse
~ This is a performance monitoring tool of PWA which is installed as a plugin for chrome. This is provide testing in three sections.
~ The first section (for analytics): like network secure connection, can load offline, page load performance, design friendly.
~ Second section: for modern protocols, CSS, offline features, JS and accessibility.
~ Third section (Performance): manly focus on page load speed.
~ Fourth and final section: check if latest HTML5 and JS features are used or not.
How to use Progressive web app?
~ First, open Flipkart in a mobile browser like chrome.
~ Click on three vertical dots in Chrome’s upper right-hand corner and click on ‘Add-on Home screen’
~ Click on ‘ADD’ of confirmation dialog.
~ Now, you see Flipkart icon is set as a mobile application.
Conclusion :
Progressive Web App development is like a boon in disguise to many. It is a long-term investment with benefits yet to be unleashed. PWA uses less memory and has zero-installation as it a web page. It syncs automatically with web and mobile app and loads more faster than other sites. It is fully responsive for any device and comes enabled with Push Notification to keep your customers engaged.
