Richer UI install available for desktop
developer.chrome.com
developer.chrome.com
Secondly, not having Electron all over the place.
Firefox is also my main browser, but that doesn't change the fact that its 3% market share has made it optional for project delivery acceptance testing.
I hardly see it in any browser matrix nowadays.
"Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?"
Said pop-up is related to increasing Web apps adoption.
You're on a Web site. It has an "Install" button that you can click. Following the change announced in this post, the popup that overlays the page content can now contain a screenshot of the site operator's choosing when Chrome prompts you to confirm installation—a screenshot that could just as easily appear on the page—i.e. the one that you are already on and that contains the install button you just clicked. The question, then, is: ignoring all the puffery and filler the blog post, what _actual_ problem does this (the "screenshots" property—and not a PWA in general) actually solve?
(Alternatively, you can say something like how you were so excited when it seemed like there was an opportunity to post a vaguely cynical and nearly zero-effort quip related to installable Web apps vs Electron that you came in firing from the hip which resulted in what, as it turns out, was a response to a different question that nobody here was actually asking. It's as simple as saying, "Oops. I was mixed up, and I don't have such a big ego that I can't admit this nor one that requires me to pretend that this is what I meant by my original comment in this thread all along.")
This is one of the primary reasons why many developers still prefer to publish in App Stores, despite the various obstacles and risks involved.
Mobile Safari also treats websites differently if users add them to their home screen. It doesn't aggressively remove local storage in these cases. However, I am not certain about Chrome's behavior in this regard.
When the person you are responding to writes, "What user problem is being solved by this?" they are not being asked to have the value proposition of "installable" Web apps explained to them. They are asking about exactly what they say they are: "Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?"
It can be minimal, it can be significant difference, all depends on the PWA implementation.
Installed app has a shortcut/desktop icon, which is good for return engagement. A flash screen ratehr than the blunt loading of a web page. The UI can be instantly there as well as some content using offline tactics. A PWA isn't compromised by all kinds of browser real estate.
A proper PWA can definitely be better or approach a proper desktop app, but it's true that few implement them in that rich way.
But I think that most users don't care and don't want to "install" webapp in their desktops.
But I absolutely positively do not want an "app" like experience. I want it to open in the browser chromez where I have tabs, where I have forward & back, where I have an address bar. Native apps are awfulz, useless limited half-shells, and I want everything to be web. The fucked up conflict is that PWAs attempt to appeal to native app enthusiasts, give developers power to make it looks like a native app, but God damn native apps are shit & the web is 300x more reasonable fair & useful.
I'd love to install some up jumped bookmarks. But wow native apps are just so limited, such a worse model to emulate, with so much less power. PWAs need a realignment where they can respect the web more. As is, they're more like retrogressive quasi-native apps. Yulou have a strictly downgraded experience for clicking the install, loose tons of thr basic web capabilities. Native sucks.
Tabbing, history, bookmarking, seamless syncing across devices.. the web is great, but scrolling shows how slow it can be.
Whether or not folks apply good practices is very much up in the air, & honestly, we have a lot to learn & relearn. Eventually I think we'll see more integrative front-end & end-to-end architectures that steer better towards success, that bake in more smart choices. Ideally atop more sensible & aware data-store systems/caches.
Somewhat different outlook on the web myself, but in general we're still speaking the same language here & I appreciate & support this post.
Back/forward/history can be nice in some circumstances, but to me if I find them needed to make a web app usable, it's an indictment of terrible navigation UI/UX design on the part of the app. It's not that difficult to design an app to not need to lean on browser controls, but it does require a bit of a more holistic approach to UI/UX design than is commonly found in web apps (where instead, everything tends to be diced up into heavily silo'd screens).
The other gripe is that these apps are making my tab clutter problems worse than they need to be. With a PWA I can make use of OS window/app management functions to help keep things sorted a bit better and make my tabs almost entirely transient rather than constant presences, easing tab management.
It's impossible to find the button to do this, though. Last time I tried to install a self hosted web app as a desktop app, I spent at least a minute searching through the menu options to find the right install button, and I knew it was there. If Chrome wants this feature to succeed, they need to make the UI much more accessible.
I'd say the same for Firefox but Firefox dropped installing PWAs on desktop all together. The mobile version still works (though you have no idea if you're creating a shortcut it installing a PWA until you open the link afterwards) but it's clear Mozilla isn't putting much effort towards web applications.
I'm running Chromium on my devices specifically because of the PWA issue on desktop, which really sucks. I wish I didn't have to but I guess I'm not Mozilla's target audience.
Chrome Apps were a proprietary Chrome-specific thing — a special type of Chrome Extension, created and managed through the Chrome Web Store.
Progressive Web Apps, meanwhile, are a set of open web standards, requiring no registration with any central authority; and have support in multiple browsers (e.g. when you "add an app to your Home Screen" from iOS Safari, that's also the PWA standards at work.)
Chrome Apps were effectively obsoleted by the Progressive Web App standards.
...although, as it happens, Chrome reused a lot of the Chrome Apps business logic to implement its support of Progressive Web Apps. If you install e.g. this PWA demo app (https://www.khmyznikov.com/pwa-install/), you'll see that Chrome opens up its old "Chrome Apps" directory to dump a shortcut icon for the PWA in there.
iOS store
macOS store
Windows store
Steam
Epic
Play store
Discover
(Gnome) Software
All these support screenshots. It's pretty reasonable that after a decade of millions of people installing apps this way they would want to see what they're getting into.
Yeah something generic would help, but manifest should still absolutely support the idea of screenshots.
Other than that not getting much utility out of it but that’s fine
Then again, maybe I didn't read very closely at what this is announcing... This is just talking about a new better install experience, but I think what I said is still true. They are putting OS affordances in the installer, but when you get to the app, its different. Yuck.
Another thing that really sucked is when MSFT deprecated "click once" installers. Suddenly this "easy" way to make an installer became a huge headache. For some stable, legacy applications you can't even build them anymore without either installing an ancient IDE, or writing a new installer. When google deprecates these installers, these apps are going to be in a similar boat. Honestly I'd expect it to be even more painful, because the underlying web part of the web app is a moving target, too.