Topincs can turn the application for a user group into a Progressive Web App (PWA) with declarative effort mainly: simply edit the user group and set the Enable Progressive Web App flag. PWA has a lot to offer at the cost of complexity. Topincs tries to shield the administrator as much possible.
A progressive web app is just like an ordinary web application augmented with a few enhancing browser technologies: the manifest, the service worker, and data storage. Topincs employs all these in a generic way to turn the online application for a user group into a PWA.
Hint: PWA is a new addition to browser technology. Some features are not yet supported in all browsers.
There is several advantages a user group gains through PWA. It is particular useful for mobile users with smartphones or tablets.
To activate PWA simply edit the respective user group and set Enable Progressive Web App to Yes. This will show two more options which you should set according to your requirements:
Hint: Learn more about Tickets.
This will create and use a ticket in the manifest. If you choose Yes, you will need to provide a Validity period of autologin ticket. Some user groups need the app only for a fixed period while others use the app indefinitely. In the latter case choose ten years or longer. Keep in mind the lifetime of the targeted device. Once the ticket has expired, the user looses access to the system through the start icon and needs to reinstall or go through the login dialog.
This will allow the user to save forms offline in addition to the standard behavior of saving them online. In the header of the user group a sync icon will appear which allows the user at any time to open the sync panel with a list of the offline saved forms for reediting, saving or deleting.
When you make the PWA offline capable, it gains the ability to save data temporarily offline, but also to browse offline since a dedicated, controllable cache on the browser of the device is filled. Topincs does this in a single request to avoid inconsistencies. The extent of the cache is all the pages in the main menu and everything that is linked to in these.
When the user looses internet connection, the PWA will render all unavailable links opaque and barely readable. They remain clickable, but a generic offline page will be displayed when the user actually visits a page that is not cached.
API reference
The browser gives only limited amount of storage space to PWAs. Avoid clogging the cache with large or unnecessary pages or files the user does not need by appending _offline=0 in the query string to all respective links either in the source code of the service or directly in the main menu.
The PWA cache on the device of the user is updated, when the user starts the PWA or saves online. There is also a refresh button in the sync panel. The refresh is always complete, but the current state of a each asset is considered. They are packaged and transmitted only when they have changed in the meantime.
To make it easy for a user to install the PWA, add a button with the id install-app on the start page of the user. Experience shows that this part of PWA has weak support amongst different browsers so your users might need additional guidance to install the app successfully.
This page cannot be displayed in your browser. Use Firefox, Opera, Safari, or Chrome instead.
Saving …