yarr as PWA?

[einschmidt]

Hi,
I was reading through your rationale and discovered your initial goal:

a desktop application accessible via web browser

That somehow sparked the question and idea to support yarr as a PWA, adding features like:

• Installable via the webpage
• Have a dedicated app icon
• Proper app feeling, not just a webpage in a browser

Checking pages like pwabuilder.com the minimum requirement would be:

• A manifest file
• Service Worker scripts

Have you considered making yarr a PWA?

I could help providing the necessary files, but have honestly no idea how to include them via GO.
Anyway, wanted to check with you upfront.

What do you think?

[nkanaev]

I've long thought whether to add pwa capabilities (maybe overthinking much), but all my concerns boil down to a simple question:

what benefits does it have over the direct browser access?

and to answer the points:

• installable via the webpage - having a webpage with static content accessible offline is good, but the thin client it's pretty much useless without internet connection.
• have a dedicated app icon - afaik, the regular websites can be added to homescreen as well (tested on chrome android)
• proper app feeling, not just a webpage in a browser - benefit of getting rid of browser chrome (not to be confused with the google chrome browser)

summarizing:

• functional benefits are none/limited.
• aesthetic benefits on mobile (for self-hosters only)

i'm inclined more towards "no", but i'm open for further discussion.

[einschmidt]

Fair points. And honestly, can't argue too much against.

Just thought it would be a low hanging fruit to catch, considering the rather minimal effort.

By the way, I am one of these self-hosters seeking for aesthetic benefits on mobile, as you may have guessed. 😸

Despite that, please allow me to share my appreciation in between. Great tool. Love the minimal style. Honestly, I was looking for something like yarr for years. 👍

[nkanaev]

thanks!

just to clarify, i'm not against pwa per se.
i think yarr'd work great as an application shell.
though i'm not sure how to handle the index page caching,
given that it's used both as the main interface and the login page.

if the implementation is fairly simple, then go for it.
i'm happy to pick it up for v2.

[nkanaev]

closing the ticket due to lack of interest from others. happy to reopen it if anyone is willing to implement & support it.

[JadeVane]

Another interest here.

What I most interest in is the proper app feeling, it means that there is no any annoying address bar when I am reading, so the address bar will be disapear which make me focus on what I want.

Actually, I know what you are worrying about, keep it simple and just act what a great rss reader would be is the best thing that yarr ever do, BTW, this is what I have been looking for a long time, as @einschmidt said, for years, thank you sincerely for developing yarr.

[thanhnguyen2187]

Hi @einschmidt. I think I can work on this. Can you provide the files and sketch me a general strategy on implementing service workers?

[einschmidt]

Hi @thanhnguyen2187 ,

Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, I am out of time, and never had a deep knowledge of service workers.
For what I can provide though, just check the link provided in the first post. pwabuilder helped gaining some understanding at least.
I bet there are other sources online.
Good luck.

[thanhnguyen2187]

Hi @einschmidt. I created a PR for PWA. You can also try using my fork and see if there is anything else I miss. Many thanks!