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josh_bodner
Microsoft
MicrosoftDev channel update to 84.0.516.1 is live
Hello Insiders! Today we’re releasing build 84.0.516.1 to the Dev channel. In community news, we’ve got another AMA coming up! It’s happening Thursday over on Reddit, see https://twitter.com/MSEdg...
josh_bodner Then what was wrong with letting sites installed as apps be dependent on the domain the way it originally worked? Since the site itself is installed as an app, it would make sense to consider all of that domain's pages as part of te "app" then?
josh_bodnerMicrosoft
Microsoftsprite-1 in some cases it would, but it gets tricky really fast. Google Docs, for example, share the same subdomain (docs.google.com), but each type of file (sheet, slide, etc.) should arguably have their own application since Google considers them three separate applications in their waffle menu. After all, does it really make sense to have a shortcut to a Sheets application, but then open a Slide with it?
Or, going the other way, Facebook has a bunch of games you can play (I still play Angry Birds, for example). Those games live on their own subdomain though (apps.facebook.com). If I have a shortcut to the main Facebook app, then I also expect that clicking a link to a game keeps me in the app since since it's just another link to a Facebook page, and any other link to a Facebook page like somebody's timeline or a message keeps me in the app. A rule like "all that domain's pages" doesn't allow for that.
The obvious fix to this is to have some list of exceptions to any rule, but creating such a list isn't a trivial task, and is very expensive to maintain. The right answer ultimately may end up just being to wait for the website developer in question to make a real PWA, since they can ship those exact rules as part of the PWA package and have it "just work" across all browsers (that support PWAs).
josh_bodner wrote:sprite-1 in some cases it would, but it gets tricky really fast. Google Docs, for example, share the same subdomain (docs.google.com), but each type of file (sheet, slide, etc.) should arguably have their own application since Google considers them three separate applications in their waffle menu. After all, does it really make sense to have a shortcut to a Sheets application, but then open a Slide with it?
I would like to posit that this is more an issue with Google / sites in question and not exactly something that Microsoft should try to solve. The standards are there for them to follow and if they don't then they can't exactly expect browser vendors to bend over backwards for it. (With some exception where it starts affecting performance like what they do with YouTube)
Or, going the other way, Facebook has a bunch of games you can play (I still play Angry Birds, for example). Those games live on their own subdomain though (apps.facebook.com). If I have a shortcut to the main Facebook app, then I also expect that clicking a link to a game keeps me in the app since since it's just another link to a Facebook page, and any other link to a Facebook page like somebody's timeline or a message keeps me in the app. A rule like "all that domain's pages" doesn't allow for that.
In the case of Facebook, it would make sense to show the black bar up top when you navigate to apps.facebook.com in this case, and the person wouldn't be leaving the app anyway, they would just be seeing the black bar up top.
The way it was originally implemented made it so that the warning feature has the least amount of clashes with regular sites installed as PWA. Now, it feels like it has a hair-trigger .
But if you're steadfast in this direction though, the least I could request is that you add an option to let users specify on their own what should be part of the "app" via a settings entry of some sort.
E.g. for Discord, that would be:
*.discord.com/channels/*(Wild cards as *)
So you get to keep the behavior that you prefer while still allowing choice for power users. You don't need to maintain a list of exceptions this way and power users can set things up themselves.