TL;DR - please like/share/comment on this post if you'd like once again to use our beloved dev.to as a PWA
So... I just got a new phone and was going through the motions of setting stuff up as I like it. One of the last things I set up was actually one of my most frequently used apps - dev.to - as a standalone app of course! Imagine my surprise and dismay when I discovered that the site is no longer installable in this manner.
One word sprang to mind...
At first I thought I must have done something wrong... so I checked again... and again... and again... on multiple mobile browsers. No success - it simply produced a link that opened the site inside the browser. I even powered my old phone back on to check I wasn't going mad. Yep, the PWA version was still there... and it still worked just fine!
Next up was more investigation - what was going on? The most obvious thing was to check if the website was still serving up manifest.json - a key ingredient of a PWA. As it turned out, it wasn't π’. A json response was received, but it just indicated a 404.
OK, so the manifest file was missing... maybe a temporary glitch on the site? I decided to use the Wayback Machine at the internet archive to see when this important element had gone missing...
Turned out to be around mid-March 2021. It's been gone for over a year!
Why would the good people at dev.to remove such a useful feature? What was the significance of that date for switching it off? I've been using dev.to like this for years with no issues or problems whatsoever!
I looked into this a little further... and... surprise surprise, it almost exactly coincided with the release of the Forem Android app - an app where you can visit all your favourite Forem-based sites in one convenient app. However, the app is not that convenient, even somewhat cumbersome, if you are only using one forem site... this was even mentioned in the comments of the app's release post on dev.to:
I can agree on this. I'm a dev.to user and I'm not registered to other Forems. So, basically:
- If you belong to multiple Forems: You can benefit from this app.
- If you only use Dev.to or another forem (but just one): Use the PWA itself.
For a single site, the PWA version of it was simply far more useable than this app.
It would seem, from the above investigation, that the main reason (there may be more) for switching off the installability was to drive adoption of the Forem app. Now, if I could fathom some kind of financial motive for this switch I might be able to understand why it was done... but the app is totally free on all platforms.
So, my question for dev.to remains...
Why would you remove such a useful piece of functionality from such a good site just to try and drive uptake of an app that simply causes inconvenience for users interested only in using dev.to, and not other Forem sites?
It just makes absolutely no sense, and seems to run counter to the ethos and culture of the site. It can't even be argued that it is difficult to resurrect the PWA, as reinstating the serving of a simple small file is (as we all know) extremely easy.
Dear dev.to - please re-instate the PWA functionality!
Please like/comment if you too would like to see this feature return.
Top comments (13)
@ben @peter @jess @michaeltharrington @thepracticaldev Really interested in your thoughts on this!
The reason for removing this functionality was because our implementation was buggy.
This isn't inherent to PWA, but we were pretty much on the bleeding edge of optimizing the service workers β even Google featured us in a few places due to the novelty β but the optimization caused too many frustrating edge cases, particularly around deployment.
I'd like it if we reimplemented the functionality without all the optimizations, but we haven't prioritized this currently and have a few other fish to fry first. We got spread too thin and had to simplify our processes at the expense of certain things we had going on.
Nothing more than thatΒ β software is a complicated journey sometimes. The longer we wait to reimplement anything like this, the better support it gets. Apple had particularly been a pain in our butts at the time. Things have gotten much better, but we've transitioned from being cutting edge to "let's wait this out a bit" with regards to this functionality.
But it still works. Perfectly well. I've been using the PWA for 18 months past the 'shutdown', without a single issue. Just put in a bare bones service worker - no caching, no nothing (or maybe even just the manifest - I'm not sure how strict browsers are about having a worker). The whole thing would just run as an ordinary site. I just want the ability to install it and use it standalone, as I can currently still do on my old phone.
I've thought of a convoluted way to get it to install using proxies and stuff, but I'd prefer all Dev users to have the benefit.
It's easy to achieve, I don't understand the reticence.
@ben Why not just try switching just the manifest back on? I have a feeling this may be enough - and would take no time at all. I set up a bare bones site with a manifest only, no worker... and mobile browsers could install it just fine.
UPDATE: The convoluted proxy solution is proving harder than expected. Any chance of switching the manifest on? :)
UPDATE 2: so, Firefox (my main browser) definitely seems not to care about having a service worker for installability - just a manifest file and HTTPS. So it would seem there's no actual downside to switching the manifest back on - only upsides. Come on, I'll buy you a beer! πΊ
I want to boost this topic, although I personally never installed the PWA - and I would never install the app either. Even only the "necessary" phone apps are already too much, and these days, still, every other persons thinks it might be a good idea to release another native app. Just why?
I use DEV, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Reflecta, Instagram, StackOverflow in my browser, both in my desktop browser and also on my mobile phone. Everything works fine. And for those who prefer an app, please provide a progressive web app manifest, so people can install it without relying to Google, Apple, and the mainstream app stores. What kind of native functionality could a DEV (or DevRant, or LinkedIn, or even Instagram etc.) app possibly need that has no modern browser support in 2022?
P.S. I know it used to be overly complicated to make a proper web app, using JavaScript even if it's just a classic server-side rendered website, but if someone is willing to invest the time and effort to code a native app, they will be capable to provide a PWA alternative, no?
UPDATE...
For anyone interested, I've recently found a way to get around this and make dev.to installable as a PWA again on mobile (at least via Firefox). It requires the use of a very simple add-on that I made (you can even remove the add-on once the install is done). I plan to expand this add-on to be a general tool for making any website installable as a PWA, but if anyone is interested in the mean time let me know and I'll provide a link to the current dev.to specific add-on (at this point I haven't put it on the Firefox add-ons site, so you'll likely need to be running Firefox Nightly to be able to use the extension file)
It got phased out in March 2021.
See
Goodbye Offline Page
Molly Struve (she/her) for The DEV Team γ» Mar 17 '21 γ» 3 min read
I'm not talking about offline functionality - I've never used the PWA like that. Just the ability to use it as an installable stand alone app on your phone is what I'm talking about. It's still installed like that on my old phone and it works just fine. If a service worker is needed to allow the browser to recognise it as an installable PWA - then just add one that does almost nothing... no offline functionality, just bare bones. I've made many apps like that - essentially just a normal website runnable as a PWA.
It would really take no time at all to add back in, and would require (probably) no upkeep or maintenance.
Yeah, a minimal SW probably could do it. I don't work at Forem anymore, but consider starting a discussion about it on forem.dev.
I concur on the app, cumbersome if only using Dev. Interesting that it was a PWA (I hadn't installed it that way as these days I seem tied to my desk since Covid lol).
I mean, essentially it still is - all they need to do is switch that
manifest.jsonback on. Literally a 10 min job