Introduction

Intuiface experiences published as a webpage can also be published as a Progressive Web App - or PWA. This article introduces you to the notion of a PWA and how to create one with Intuiface.

NOTE:

• Player Next Gen is required to deploy experiences as a Progressive Web App. If you want access to Player Next Gen, contact your Intuiface Sales Rep or email sales@intuiface.com.

What is a Progressive Web App

A Progressive Web App is an application built entirely out of web technologies. It can run both inside a web browser and as a stand-alone app. With Intuiface, all experiences can be published as a PWA.

The main benefits of installing an experience as a Progressive Web App are:

1. PWAs can be run offline - unless intentionally constructed to communicate with the cloud
2. PWAs can run as a stand-alone app, thus looking and acting like any other locally-installed app. 

NOTE: There are some performance tradeoffs when running an experience as a webpage vs. as a PWA. Of particular note, PWAs load all media when they launch, while webpages typically load media on demand - i.e. when part of the active scene. Thus it will take a PWA longer to launch than a webpage, while also making it possible to run the PWA offline.

Prerequisites

• Only Platform Enterprise accounts can create PWAs.
• To create a Progressive Web App, experiences must be published to the web using Player Licensing. Experiences published to the web with Views Licensing cannot become a PWA.

Installing an experience as a PWA in a web browser

To install an experience as a PWA in a web browser, simply publish it to the web using Player licensing.

Installing an experience as a stand-alone PWA

To install an experience as a stand-alone PWA, publish it to the web using Player licensing, then follow the appropriate steps below for each combination of browser and operating system.

Windows and macOS

• Supported browsers
  The address bar will contain an icon that, if clicked, will install the experience as a stand-alone PWA
  • Google Chrome
    
  • Chrome-based Microsoft Edge
    
• Unsupported browsers
  All other browsers, including:
  
  • Safari (this is not unique to Intuiface; Safari does not permit stand-alone PWA installation)
  • Firefox

Android and iOS

• Supported browsers
  
  • Google Chrome
    Open the Settings panel then select the "Install app" option.
    
  • Chrome-based Microsoft Edge
    Open the Settings panel then select the "Add to phone" option.
    
  • Apple Safari
    At the bottom of the webpage, select the Sharing icon and then scroll the Sharing pop-up until you see the "Add to Home Screen" option. Select that option.
    (NOTE: See the licensing limitation below.)
    
• Unsupported browsers
  All other browsers.

Delete a URL

To delete a URL, click its Edit icon

then click the "Delete URL" button.

NOTE: Deleting the URL will NOT force the release of Player licenses checked out for that URL before the end of the retention period. All PWAs in the field will continue to run until the retention period expires. If you want to force the early release of a Player license, see this on-device method.

Limitations

• Exclusive to iOS, two Player licenses are consumed when creating a stand-alone Progressive Web App: one by the originating webpage, the second by the stand-alone PWA generated from the webpage. The webpage Player license will be released when the webpage is closed or if the device is offline after the retention duration has expired. This limitation applies to all browsers on iOS - not just Safari.
  Across all other platforms, in all other browsers, a single license is shared by the experience webpage and the stand-alone PWA it creates. 
• You cannot delete the URL used to create a stand-alone PWA-deployed experience. The stand-alone PWA uses the same URL as the originating webpage and depends on its existence. If you delete the originating URL, the stand-alone PWA will also cease to work.