Hey all,
This post is in collaboration with James Q Quick. If you like to see videos then check out this video by James Q Quick.
So let's get the party started.
What is a PWA?
PWA stands for Progressive web app. It is basically like a web app built with HTML, CSS, and Javascript with a few more features like-
- Extremely Fast
- Installable
- Works in all browsers
- Provides an offline page
- Push notifications
Setup
Creating a Next.js app
npx create-next-app next-pwa-demo
I am going to convert the default Next.js template into a PWA, you can convert your web app.
Installing the required dependency
npm i next-pwa # npm
yarn add next-pwa # yarn
Generating a manifest
I am going to use Simicart for generating the manifest. You can simply add the details of your app and it will generate a manifest. Make sure to select standalone in the display
The generated manifest will look similar to this
{
"theme_color": "#000000",
"background_color": "#ffffff",
"display": "standalone",
"scope": "/",
"start_url": "/",
"name": "Next PWA",
"short_name": "PWA",
"description": "This app is to demo PWA in Next.js",
"icons": [
{
"src": "/icon-192x192.png",
"sizes": "192x192",
"type": "image/png"
},
{
"src": "/icon-256x256.png",
"sizes": "256x256",
"type": "image/png"
},
{
"src": "/icon-384x384.png",
"sizes": "384x384",
"type": "image/png"
},
{
"src": "/icon-512x512.png",
"sizes": "512x512",
"type": "image/png"
}
]
}
After you are done with adding all the details, install the zip file and extract it. After you have extracted, drag and drop all the files in the public folder.
We will rename manifest.webmanifest to manifest.json.
Finally, the public directory should look like this
Creating _document.js
Create _document.js in the pages folder and add the following piece of code
import Document, { Html, Head, Main, NextScript } from "next/document";
class MyDocument extends Document {
render() {
return (
<Html>
<Head>
<link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/icon.png"></link>
<meta name="theme-color" content="#fff" />
</Head>
<body>
<Main />
<NextScript />
</body>
</Html>
);
}
}
export default MyDocument;
Configuring PWA in Next config
We will need to add some data for configuring the PWA, so add this snippet in next.config.js.
const withPWA = require("next-pwa");
module.exports = withPWA({
pwa: {
dest: "public",
register: true,
skipWaiting: true,
},
});
You have made your app a PWA 🥳
Making better development environment
Adding the auto-generated files to .gitignore
If you notice then a few files like service workers, and workbox has been added to the public folder.
These files change constantly and are not needed in your GitHub. So, do the following to remove them from production.
Delete
sw.js,sw.js.map,workbox-****.jsandworkbox-****.js.map.Add the files to
.gitignore
# PWA files
**/public/sw.js
**/public/workbox-*.js
**/public/worker-*.js
**/public/sw.js.map
**/public/workbox-*.js.map
**/public/worker-*.js.map
- Now if you restart the server then the filenames will be dark
Disabling PWA in development
In development, you might want to disable PWA because it gives a lot of console messages.
We will disable it like this in next.config.js
const withPWA = require("next-pwa");
module.exports = withPWA({
pwa: {
dest: "public",
register: true,
skipWaiting: true,
disable: process.env.NODE_ENV === "development",
},
});
Hope you found this useful. See ya in the next one ✌🏻
Useful links-
Top comments (14)
Thank you sir. It's help to start new project.
great example
Nice
This is really helpful..
Have anyone managed to make it work with samsung internet? I've managed to make it work only on chrome.
pwa-template-xi.vercel.app/
I checked your app on Samsung Galaxy S20 running Samsung Internet, and it seems to work fine. What problems are you experiencing?
Not sure why but other PWA sites render the download button on the navigation bar but that isn't being rendered on the Samsung Galaxy S9+ I'm testing with.
Just Amazing!
Awesome
Very insightful! Thanks.
could you explain how to deploy in vercel? I follow this instruction but when I deployed the PWA, it was not working properly.
Hey, can you inspect the page. Click on lighthouse tab and run the test with PWA checked. After that you can tell the reason it failed :)
Thank you so much James! Best tutorial I could find.
great example