Host PWA without HTTPS on local network.

[foofoodog]

The app seems to have issues being hosted on a server on the local network without https available.
Chrome does not offer to install it unless one enables and adds the address to chrome://flags/#unsafely-treat-insecure-origin-as-secure.
Next the service worker does not register so the app is not available offline either hosting in docker or node. Trying to fetch sw.js directly gives a 404.

[henmedia]

@foofoodog, thank you for the details. These are two separate things:

1. No install offer and no service worker on plain http. This is a browser rule, not layerling: Chrome allows installing an app and registering a service worker only on https or on localhost. An address like http://192.168.1.20:3000 counts as insecure, so layerling does not offer the install there (the hint on the start page stays hidden on purpose). The flag you found works, but only on that one computer. For every computer on the network, put https in front of layerling: a reverse proxy such as Caddy or nginx with a certificate, for example from mkcert or a Tailscale name.

2. /sw.js is a 404. That is right for the Docker image and for npm start: the file for offline use is written only into the static export (npm run export, the way layerling.com is built). The Docker image runs the server version, which has the shared folder and the AI bridge, and it does not have that file. So even with https the offline mode is not there in Docker today. If you need offline use, the static export served over https by any web server has it. The README did not say this, and now it does.

Do you need the server parts (shared folder, AI bridge) as well, or only the app on the local network?

If layerling is useful to you, you can support it at https://layerling.com/support.html.

[foofoodog]

OK, I see, the npm run export, npx serve apps/web/.next-export form seems to work as expected so far.
Might want to mention adding *.local to LAYERLING_ALLOWED_DEV_ORIGINS somewhere as well. Seems next might need that. I just hard coded it in the config 🤪
I did not want to go through the whole custom dns, reverse proxy, lets encrypt rigamarole. I did want to keep it all within My Four Walls as it were 😄 *.local a freebee already. I suppose I could install IIS on a windows box here 😢

[henmedia]

@foofoodog, thank you, good to hear that the static export works for you.

You do not need to hard code the dev origins: there is an environment variable for it, LAYERLING_ALLOWED_DEV_ORIGINS=*.local (several values separated by commas). It matters only for npm run dev; the static export and npm run start do not use it. It is not in the README yet, and I will add it there.

One thing so you are not surprised: a .local name over plain http:// is still not a secure context for Chrome, so installing as an app and offline use will not work on it, only the page itself. If you want those inside your four walls, Caddy can give your own address a certificate from a small authority of its own (tls internal, as I understand it from its documentation); each computer has to trust that authority once. It needs no public DNS and no Let's Encrypt. An IIS server is not necessary either: any web server can serve the export.