PWAdapter is a library that brings the Web App Manifest to non-compliant browsers for better Progressive Web Apps. This mostly means creating splash screens and icons for Mobile Safari, as well as supporting IE/Edge's Pinned Sites feature.

So, if you've created a manifest.json but want to have wide support everywhere else look no further. We recommend including it from the JSDelivr CDN to get the latest version:

<!-- Link your WebManifest -->
<link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json" />
<!-- Link the PWAdapter script -->
<script async src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/giusreds/pwadapter@dist/pwadapter.min.js"></script>

And you're done! 🎉📄

For more on the Web App Manifest, read 📖 how to add a Web App Manifest and mobile-proof your site, watch 📹 theming as part of The Standard, or check out 📬 the Web Fundamentals post.

Best Practice & Caveats

While PWAdapter can generate most icons, meta tags etc that your PWA might need, it's best practice to include at least one <link rel="icon" ... />. This is standardized and older browsers, along with search engines, may use it from your page to display an icon. For example:

<!-- Include 'standard' favicon -->
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="res/icon-128.png" sizes="128x128" />

You should also consider only loading PWAdapter after your site is loaded, as adding your site to a homescreen is a pretty rare operation.

iOS

PWAdapter looks for a viewport tag which includes viewport-fit=cover or viewport-fit=contain, such as <meta name="viewport" content="viewport-fit=cover">. If this tag is detected, PWAdapter will generate a meta tag that makes your PWA load in fullscreen mode and with black status bar - this is particularly useful for devices with a notch.

You can customize the generated splash screen's font by using a CSS Variable. For example:

<style>
  link[rel="manifest"] {
     --pwadapter-splash-font: 24px Verdana;
  }
</style>

This is set directly as a canvas font, so you must as a minimum include size and family. The default value is "24px HelveticaNeue-CondensedBold".

⚠️ If you're using custom fonts, be sure to only load the library after they're ready.

Old Versions

Prior to iOS 12.2, Mobile Safari opens external sites in the regular browser, meaning that flows like Oauth won't complete correctly. This is an issue with all PWAs on iOS generally.

Session Storage

PWAdapter uses window.sessionStorage to cache your site's manifest (and on iOS, any updated icons and generated splash screens). This expires after a user navigates away from your page or closes their tab.

Details

What does PWAdapter actually do? If you provide a Web App Manifest, PWAdapter will update your page and:

• Create meta icon tags for all icons in the manifest (e.g., for a favicon, older browsers)
• Create fallback meta tags for various browsers (e.g., iOS, WebKit/Chromium forks etc) describing how a PWA should open
• Sets the theme color based on the manifest

For Safari, PWAdapter also:

• Sets apple-mobile-web-app-capable (opening without a browser chrome) for display modes standalone, fullscreen or minimal-ui
• Creates apple-touch-icon images, adding the manifest background to transparent icons: otherwise, iOS renders transparency as black
• Creates dynamic splash images, closely matching the splash images generated for Chromium-based browsers

For IE and Edge:

• Adds meta tags for the Pinned Sites feature

For PWAs on Windows with access to UWP APIs:

• Sets the titlebar color

Web App Manifest

Your Web App Manifest is:

• normally named manifest.json or manifest.webmanifest
• referenced from all pages on your site like <link rel="manifest" href="path/to/manifest.json" />
• and should look a bit like this:

{
  "name": "Always Be Progressive",
  "short_name": "Progressive!",
  "display": "fullscreen",
  "start_url": "index.html?scope=pwa",
  "background_color": "#102a48",
  "icons": [
    {
      "src": "res/icon-m-256.png",
      "sizes": "256x256",
      "purpose": "maskable"
    },
    {
      "src": "res/icon-256.png",
      "sizes": "256x256",
      "purpose": "any"
    }
  ]
}

For more information on the Web App Manifest, and how e.g., modern browsers will prompt engaged users to install your site to their home screen, check out Web Fundamentals.

License

© 2020 Giuseppe Rossi

The license for this repository is a GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (SPDX: AGPL-3.0).

This project is based on PWACompat from Google Chrome Labs. Please see the NOTICE file for full reference.

Release

Compile code with Google Closure Compiler.

// ==ClosureCompiler==
// @compilation_level SIMPLE_OPTIMIZATIONS
// @output_file_name pwadapter.min.js
// ==/ClosureCompiler==

// code here