Progressive Web Apps (PWA) discussions take off in the JavaScript community, but not so much among Rails developers.
The development of Progressive Web Apps is still in its infancy. Perhaps the Rails team that hire Ruby on Rails developer wants to wait until the new JavaScript API is more reliable before integrating it.
Additionally, there hasn’t yet been a clear roadmap for PWA technology integration in the Rails community that hire Ruby on Rails developer. This blog will show you how to use the service worker-rails gem to transform an existing Rails project into a Progressive Web app.
Simply put, a progressive web app is an online application that simulates a mobile app’s functionality when you hire a ruby on rails developer using the help of ruby on rails development services. Open web technologies, for instance, have made it possible for browser-based web programs to:
- Installable
You may easily add online apps to the home screen of your mobile device.
- More Trustworthy
When the network is slow to respond, or the device is down, provide the user with a good experience. When network functionality is reinstated, synchronize user requests in the background.
- More Alluring
Even if they are not using the site, alert users to activity.
Nice, huh? Let’s get going. To proceed further, hire a Ruby on Rails developer supporting Ruby on Rails development services.
Rails’ initial progressive web app
● HTTPS:
We strongly advise utilizing HTTPS everywhere, as all sites utilizing Progressive Web App technology must be delivered over SSL/TLS.
● Manifest for Web Apps:
a program metadata text file that supports installation on the Start screen.
● Service Worker:
a JavaScript worker on the client side can push alerts, interact with local caches, change replies to network requests, and synchronize data in the background.
● Configure HTTPS.
Depending on your hosting provider and deployment needs, you must choose how to configure your web server to enable HTTPS on your website. A great place to start is with the setup guides for Heroku and Digital Ocean.
Additionally, SSL settings must be configured in the Rails application in the remote environment.
Test this behavior on a secondary remote environment before putting it into production. You want to be aware of problems like your application’s mixed content warnings and hard-coded non-HTTPS URLs.
Add a service worker and a manifest.
Suppose you’re utilizing Rails’s asset pipeline for this next stage. Although useful, this has flaws.
Asset digest fingerprints and long-lived cache headers are only two examples of the various assumptions the Rails asset pipeline makes about the ideal JavaScript serving practices. The main goal of this is to increase “cacheability”. To make it simple to locate the file path for a specific asset, Rails additionally anticipates a single parent directory, /public/assets.
Service personnel should adhere to different norms than manifest assets. Service workers are only permitted to work in the region where they are used. Therefore, you can only deal with requests and replies in /assets/** when registering a service worker via a Rails assets pipeline route like /assets/serviceworker-abcd1234.js. We do not desire that.
We developed the Serviceworker Rails gem (source) to address this issue. With the help of this Rails plugin, you can quickly configure your app to use the asset pipeline’s transpiration and interpolation features to deliver service worker scripts and web app manifests at canonical URLs.
Bundle service worker rails with your Rails project to get started.
- Add gems to the gemfile in step 1.
- Bundle your app in step two.
Using the built-in generator of Service Worker Rails, you may add a beginning JavaScript file and the proper configuration to your project.
The following files will be produced by the generator:
- Configure your Rails application using config/initializers/serviceworker.rb.
- app/assets/javascripts/serviceworker.js.erb: A service worker script that is empty but has some example tactics
- The JavaScript snippet included in app/assets/javascripts/serviceworker-companion.js is needed to register the service worker with the browser.
- app/assets/javascripts/manifest.json.erb: A basic web app manifests that uses some of the gem’s pre-configured app icons.
- Starter offline page (public/offline.html).
The following adjustments are also applied to already-existing files:
- To obtain serviceworker-companion.js, add a sprockets directive to your application.js file.
- Add manifest.json and serviceworker.js to the config/initializers/assets.rb file’s list of built assets.
- Include a tag linking to your web app manifest in the head of app/views/layouts/application.html.erb.
Even though this setup was done manually, running the automatic installation on the first attempt is beneficial. For setup information, if you prefer to handle it manually, read my prior blog article on gem configuration and the Serviceworker Rails README.
You’ve now completed setting up your Rails app’s fundamental components and have begun incorporating Progressive Web App features. You can pick and choose which features to include is fantastic
You can try the following:
- Include an offline page in your Rails application.
- From Rails, send a web push notification.
- Using the Service Worker application shell architecture, instantly load web applications.
Moving on:
The offline web application from Google:
The lifespan of a service worker must be understood.
Lifecycle of a Service Worker:
For free, open-source abstractions for creating service worker fetching and caching methods, see the Google Chrome team’s SW-Toolbox and SW-Precache.
Of course, we’ve just covered the beginning of the path toward Progressive Web Apps. Many enjoyable aspects, such as choosing how to incorporate caching techniques and deliver push alerts, were skipped over.
Rails PWA:
There is no technical reason why you can’t start implementing these features right away; you can first hire Ruby on Rails developers for Ruby on Rails development services because there is nothing in Rails that is incompatible with Progressive Web App technology. Be aware that the option to switch to a PWA is completely independent of the choices made about the JavaScript MVC framework, module bundler, and Turbolink.
We think hiring a Ruby on Rails developer to provide PWA features in the coming years will be crucial to keep up with demand as more and more website visitors shift to the mobile web.