Progressive Web App

Last update: a month ago by Mateusz FilipowiczReading time: 2 min

We recommend setting up PWA, which greatly improves user experience of your BooGi page.

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web app that uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like experience to users. These apps meet certain requirements (see below), are deployed to servers, accessible through URLs, and indexed by search engines (optionally).

To be considered a Progressive Web App, BooGi-based pages:

Progressive - Work for every user, regardless of browser choice.
Responsive - Fit any form factor, desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever is next. (improvements in responsiveness are coming soon..)
Connectivity independent - Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low quality networks.
App-like - Use the app-shell model to provide app-style navigation and interactions.
Fresh - Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.
Safe - Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content has not been tampered with. (depends on deployment option of your choice)
Discoverable - Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.
Re-engageable - Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.
Installable - Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.
Linkable - Meaning they’re zero-friction, zero-install, and easy to share.

Configuration

In order for PWA to work properly, following base properties must be set properly as defined in base configuration: metadata.name, metadata.pathPrefix, metadata.themeColor. Additional properties used, when provided, are: metadata.short_name (othwerise calculated from name), metadata.description, metadata.language (defaults to en).

Property	Description	Required	Default value
`pwa.enabled`	Set to `true` if you want to enable PWA.	Yes	`true`
`pwa.manifest.display`	Customize what browser UI is shown when your app is launched. For example, you can hide the address bar and browser chrome. Read more in the Display section below.	No	`minimal-ui`
`pwa.manifest.crossOrigin`	Set value to `use-credentials` to enable sharing resources via cookies. Any invalid keyword or empty string will fallback to `anonymous`. You can find more information about crossorigin on MDN.	No	`anonymous`
`pwa.manifest.icon`	Path to icon the app should use and generate icons of other resolution based on it. It must exist in `assets`. Example: `/assets/mysite.png`. At least one of `pwa.manifest.icon` or `pwa.manifest.icons` must be set. Read more about icons in Icons section below.	Yes	Value taken from `metadata.siteImage`
`pwa.manifest.icons`	List of icons the app should use. Example: `/assets/mysite-512.png`. At least one of `pwa.manifest.icon` or `pwa.manifest.icons` must be set. Read more about icons in Icons section below.	Yes
`pwa.manifest.icons[].src`	Path to specific icon the app should use.	Yes
`pwa.manifest.icons[].sizes`	A string containing space-separated image dimensions used as app icons. Examples: `512x512`, `72x72 128x128 256x256`.	Yes
`pwa.manifest.icons[].type`	MIME Type of the icon used. It is automatically calculated, so override it with caution.	No	Automatically calculated

Icons

There are three modes in which icon generation can function: automatic, hybrid, and manual.

Automatic - Generate a pre-configured set of icons from a single source icon. Used when only pwa.manifest.icon is set.
Hybrid - Generate a manually configured set of icons from a single source icon. Used when both pwa.manifest.icon and pwa.manifest.icons are set.
Manual- Don’t generate or pre-configure any icons. Used when only pwa.manifest.icons is set.

If favicon is missing and not defined in pwa.metadata.favicon, it also will be created in automatic or hybrid modes.

IMPORTANT: For best results, if you’re providing an icon for generation it should be:

at least as big as the largest icon being generated (512x512 by default).
square (if it’s not, transparent bars will automatically be added to make it square).
of one of the following formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF or SVG.

Display

Below is a set of allowed properties of pwa.manifest.display property.

Property	Use
`fullscreen`	Opens the web application without any browser UI and takes up the entirety of the available display area.
`standalone`	Opens the web app to look and feel like a standalone native app. The app runs in its own window, separate from the browser, and hides standard browser UI elements like the URL bar.
`minimal-ui`	This mode is similar to `standalone`, but provides the user a minimal set of UI elements for controlling navigation (such as back and reload).
`browser`	A standard browser experience.

Minimal configuration example

metadata:
  name: My Awesome BooGi site
  siteImage: /assets/myapp.png
  pathPrefix: /
  theme_color: '#0066cc'
pwa:
  enabled: true

Full configuration example

metadata:
  name: My Awesome BooGi site
  short_name: BooPWA
  description: This is my PWA-enabled BooGi site
  language: en
  pathPrefix: /
  theme_color: '#0066cc'
pwa:
  enabled: true
  manifest:
    display: standalone
    crossOrigin: use-credentials
    icon: "/assets/mycustomicon.png"
    icons:
      - src: /assets/pwa-320.png
        sizes: 320x320

🔧 Configuration — Previous

Base configuration

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