1. 5
    Lobsters PWA? ☶ meta web
    kaycebasques avatar authored by kaycebasques 7 months ago | 8 comments

Just got prompted to install Lobsters to home screen. Is this new or did my OS/browser heuristic for showing that prompt just finally kick in?

    1. 4
      pushcx avatar pushcx Sysop 7 months ago

      I merged code to add a manifest.json yesterday. Could you add a screenshot of the prompt you got to the GitHub issue?

      FWIW, I thought this was a nice-to-have option that would show up when bookmarking or otherwise in response to a deliberate user action. I’d prefer it not interrupt people like this. Lobsters is a nice web forum and I’m happy to make it convenient for folks who’d like it on their home screen, but I didn’t plan to promote and support it as a mobile app.

      1. 5
        pushcx avatar pushcx Sysop edited 7 months ago

        I found some screenshots and they’re obnoxious. I can’t find anything in the spec, w3c repo, or MDN writeup to configure or even hint the browser not to do that. I’ve removed the manifest.json and it won’t return while it’ll cause intrusive popups. Thanks for reporting the bad behavior.

        1. 3
          sknebel avatar sknebel 7 months ago

          on chromium-based browsers you can suppress the prompt: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/How_to/Trigger_install_prompt#listening_for_beforeinstallprompt

          1. 3
            pushcx avatar pushcx edited 7 months ago

            The plot thickens! That seems to have been removed from the standard, which is odd given that MDN is dated well after the removal. CanIUse has a number of items for beforeinstallprompt. This PWA feature looks really experimental/immature, maybe we just want to punt a couple years until there’s a clear path to good cross-browser UI.

            In any case, we don’t serve js to logged-out users so even if beforeinstallprompt was added back somewhere I don’t see, reimplementation will have to add a login check around the meta tag.

            1. 2
              gsora avatar gsora 7 months ago

              If we could re-instate the manifest file with the suppression prompt enabled it would be sweet.

          2. 3
            gsora avatar gsora 7 months ago

            otherwise in response to a deliberate user action.

            IIRC iOS Safari never asks users to add apps to home screen, but the presence of manifest.json makes it behave as a PWA and not just a bookmark (screenshot).

            1. 4
              boehs avatar boehs 7 months ago

              Would it be possible to conditionally deliver PWA manifests to only safari users?

              1. 4
                pushcx avatar pushcx 7 months ago

                If there’s anything to indicate the UI is likely to be stable this way, yeah, I’m fine with that. Seeing how much this feature differs between browsers makes me hesitant to implement it, though. I don’t recognize any of the contributors to discuss expectations.