7 ms·

Richer UI install available for desktop

91 points by feross 4y ago

hulitu 4y ago
There is notthing "rich" in Richer UI. The same dumbed down interface like the rest of Google.
- derefr 4y ago
  Dumbed down compared to what? Is there a complex PWA installation UX flow you're contrasting this to?
leothecool 4y ago
Silverlight had this. It was a bad idea, then. Its still a bad idea.
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  What makes it a bad idea?
  - leothecool 4y ago
    IMO a big reason why is that web apps don't have the idioms and affordances of desktop applications, so in the end, the ux feels wrong to users unless do you a boatload of extra work implementing and maintaining the multiple versions of the experiences your app provides. In many cases it was easier to just rewrite the whole thing in a desktop framework, where the desktop idioms and affordances are the default behavior, instead of trying to implement them in a cross platform framework. This problem only got worse when the OS updated its look and feel, your cross platform app wouldn't look new, like it would if you used the built in frameworks provided by the OS. Then again, maybe I didn't read very closely at what this is announcing... This is just talking about a new better install experience, but I think what I said is still true. They are putting OS affordances in the installer, but when you get to the app, its different. Yuck. Another thing that really sucked is when MSFT deprecated "click once" installers. Suddenly this "easy" way to make an installer became a huge headache. For some stable, legacy applications you can't even build them anymore without either installing an ancient IDE, or writing a new installer. When google deprecates these installers, these apps are going to be in a similar boat. Honestly I'd expect it to be even more painful, because the underlying web part of the web app is a moving target, too.
- thiht 4y ago
  Why?
throwawa14223 4y ago
Yet again Google takes a step to make using a browser worse.
- thiht 4y ago
  What does it change to your usage?
turtlebits 4y ago
This is confusing to me as Chrome deprecated "apps" in 2020 (https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/moving-forward-from-chrome-apps.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/moving-forward-from-chrome...) in favor of extensions, is this somehow different from the extension install experience?
- derefr 4y ago
  Correction: Chrome deprecated Chrome Apps. Chrome Apps are not the same thing as Progressive Web Apps. Chrome Apps were a proprietary Chrome-specific thing — a special type of Chrome Extension, created and managed through the Chrome Web Store. Progressive Web Apps, meanwhile, are a set of open web standards, requiring no registration with any central authority; and have support in multiple browsers (e.g. when you "add an app to your Home Screen" from iOS Safari, that's also the PWA standards at work.) Chrome Apps were effectively obsoleted by the Progressive Web App standards. ...although, as it happens, Chrome reused a lot of the Chrome Apps business logic to implement its support of Progressive Web Apps. If you install e.g. this PWA demo app (https://www.khmyznikov.com/pwa-install/ https://www.khmyznikov.com/pwa-install/), you'll see that Chrome opens up its old "Chrome Apps" directory to dump a shortcut icon for the PWA in there.
butz 4y ago
Still a much better solution than installing an additional browser runtime with each "native" app. And Firefox should finally give in and implement "add to desktop", as it is much more useful, when your main browser supports it. Also, useful for business where launching your database application as separate task and having browser things in browser makes it easier to work. Especially for workers with lots of tabs.
harrisonjackson 4y ago
I am using this to elevate a couple high use “tabs” out of the browser so I can more easily toggle to them with CMD+tab. It’s better than pinning the tabs all the way to the left of 100 other open tabs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Other than that not getting much utility out of it but that’s fine
chabad360 4y ago
I'm not sure why having a screenshot is required but a description is optional. I would think you should be able to set either and that would enable the richer UI.
- mgninad 4y ago
  Without a screenshot that UI will look very bad. Its a decision to improve UI and not to improve the Product.
  - jayd16 4y ago
    A generic default image would easily solve the problem, though.
    - c-hendricks 4y ago
      Screenshots upon installation is kinda how millions of people experience installing apps these days. iOS store macOS store Windows store Steam Epic Play store Discover (Gnome) Software All these support screenshots. It's pretty reasonable that after a decade of millions of people installing apps this way they would want to see what they're getting into. Yeah something generic would help, but manifest should still absolutely support the idea of screenshots.
dangrover 4y ago
It doesn't make sense because the barrier to "apphood" in whatever Chrome defines to be an app is scarcely more than making a manifest. The distinction between a chrome app and a webpage is very minimal. What user problem is being solved by this? Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  One of the biggest problems is that users often neglect to use bookmarks. Consequently, as soon as they close your web app, it disappears. By using the "Install" feature, a bookmark is kept in a visible location, significantly improving the chances that users will launch your app again. This is one of the primary reasons why many developers still prefer to publish in App Stores, despite the various obstacles and risks involved. Mobile Safari also treats websites differently if users add them to their home screen. It doesn't aggressively remove local storage in these cases. However, I am not certain about Chrome's behavior in this regard.
  - cxr 4y ago
    You have misunderstood the question. Chrome already allows you to "install" these things today. This post is about a change to Chrome's installation UI. Chrome's installation UI will support the "screenshots" property in the installation manifest now. When the person you are responding to writes, "What user problem is being solved by this?" they are not being asked to have the value proposition of "installable" Web apps explained to them. They are asking about exactly what they say they are: "Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?"
- dahwolf 4y ago
  "The distinction between a chrome app and a webpage is very minimal" It can be minimal, it can be significant difference, all depends on the PWA implementation. Installed app has a shortcut/desktop icon, which is good for return engagement. A flash screen ratehr than the blunt loading of a web page. The UI can be instantly there as well as some content using offline tactics. A PWA isn't compromised by all kinds of browser real estate. A proper PWA can definitely be better or approach a proper desktop app, but it's true that few implement them in that rich way.
greatgib 4y ago
For decade, it is the dream of Google and co to have "webapp desktop app" and so the browser could become a kind of app store. But I think that most users don't care and don't want to "install" webapp in their desktops.
- blowski 4y ago
  I've noticed a lot of IT departments want to have an internal appstore from which users can install webapps. So it's not necessarily for the end users but the device managers, where those are different entities.
  - jabroni_salad 4y ago
    Business users will replicate any product in excel and use an email attachment from 3 years ago in the deleted items folder as the point of reference if we don't make it super easy to find them.
    - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
      "The deleted items folder doesn't count towards user quota"
- rektide 4y ago
  I'd love to install we apps & make navigating there much faster. Giving them more permissions make sense. But I absolutely positively do not want an "app" like experience. I want it to open in the browser chromez where I have tabs, where I have forward & back, where I have an address bar. Native apps are awfulz, useless limited half-shells, and I want everything to be web. The fucked up conflict is that PWAs attempt to appeal to native app enthusiasts, give developers power to make it looks like a native app, but God damn native apps are shit & the web is 300x more reasonable fair & useful. I'd love to install some up jumped bookmarks. But wow native apps are just so limited, such a worse model to emulate, with so much less power. PWAs need a realignment where they can respect the web more. As is, they're more like retrogressive quasi-native apps. Yulou have a strictly downgraded experience for clicking the install, loose tons of thr basic web capabilities. Native sucks.
Alifatisk 4y ago
This is a good step I think, the way of installing an PWA atm is very unclear.

91 points by feross 4y ago

hulitu 4y ago

There is notthing "rich" in Richer UI. The same dumbed down interface like the rest of Google.

derefr 4y ago
Dumbed down compared to what? Is there a complex PWA installation UX flow you're contrasting this to?

leothecool 4y ago

Silverlight had this. It was a bad idea, then. Its still a bad idea.

ChadNauseam 4y ago
What makes it a bad idea?
- leothecool 4y ago
  IMO a big reason why is that web apps don't have the idioms and affordances of desktop applications, so in the end, the ux feels wrong to users unless do you a boatload of extra work implementing and maintaining the multiple versions of the experiences your app provides. In many cases it was easier to just rewrite the whole thing in a desktop framework, where the desktop idioms and affordances are the default behavior, instead of trying to implement them in a cross platform framework. This problem only got worse when the OS updated its look and feel, your cross platform app wouldn't look new, like it would if you used the built in frameworks provided by the OS. Then again, maybe I didn't read very closely at what this is announcing... This is just talking about a new better install experience, but I think what I said is still true. They are putting OS affordances in the installer, but when you get to the app, its different. Yuck. Another thing that really sucked is when MSFT deprecated "click once" installers. Suddenly this "easy" way to make an installer became a huge headache. For some stable, legacy applications you can't even build them anymore without either installing an ancient IDE, or writing a new installer. When google deprecates these installers, these apps are going to be in a similar boat. Honestly I'd expect it to be even more painful, because the underlying web part of the web app is a moving target, too.
thiht 4y ago
Why?

throwawa14223 4y ago

Yet again Google takes a step to make using a browser worse.

thiht 4y ago
What does it change to your usage?

turtlebits 4y ago

This is confusing to me as Chrome deprecated "apps" in 2020 (https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/moving-forward-from-chrome-apps.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/moving-forward-from-chrome...) in favor of extensions, is this somehow different from the extension install experience?

derefr 4y ago
Correction: Chrome deprecated Chrome Apps. Chrome Apps are not the same thing as Progressive Web Apps. Chrome Apps were a proprietary Chrome-specific thing — a special type of Chrome Extension, created and managed through the Chrome Web Store. Progressive Web Apps, meanwhile, are a set of open web standards, requiring no registration with any central authority; and have support in multiple browsers (e.g. when you "add an app to your Home Screen" from iOS Safari, that's also the PWA standards at work.) Chrome Apps were effectively obsoleted by the Progressive Web App standards. ...although, as it happens, Chrome reused a lot of the Chrome Apps business logic to implement its support of Progressive Web Apps. If you install e.g. this PWA demo app (https://www.khmyznikov.com/pwa-install/ https://www.khmyznikov.com/pwa-install/), you'll see that Chrome opens up its old "Chrome Apps" directory to dump a shortcut icon for the PWA in there.

butz 4y ago

Still a much better solution than installing an additional browser runtime with each "native" app. And Firefox should finally give in and implement "add to desktop", as it is much more useful, when your main browser supports it. Also, useful for business where launching your database application as separate task and having browser things in browser makes it easier to work. Especially for workers with lots of tabs.

harrisonjackson 4y ago

I am using this to elevate a couple high use “tabs” out of the browser so I can more easily toggle to them with CMD+tab. It’s better than pinning the tabs all the way to the left of 100 other open tabs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Other than that not getting much utility out of it but that’s fine

chabad360 4y ago

I'm not sure why having a screenshot is required but a description is optional. I would think you should be able to set either and that would enable the richer UI.

mgninad 4y ago
Without a screenshot that UI will look very bad. Its a decision to improve UI and not to improve the Product.
- jayd16 4y ago
  A generic default image would easily solve the problem, though.
  - c-hendricks 4y ago
    Screenshots upon installation is kinda how millions of people experience installing apps these days. iOS store macOS store Windows store Steam Epic Play store Discover (Gnome) Software All these support screenshots. It's pretty reasonable that after a decade of millions of people installing apps this way they would want to see what they're getting into. Yeah something generic would help, but manifest should still absolutely support the idea of screenshots.

dangrover 4y ago

It doesn't make sense because the barrier to "apphood" in whatever Chrome defines to be an app is scarcely more than making a manifest. The distinction between a chrome app and a webpage is very minimal. What user problem is being solved by this? Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?

vbezhenar 4y ago
One of the biggest problems is that users often neglect to use bookmarks. Consequently, as soon as they close your web app, it disappears. By using the "Install" feature, a bookmark is kept in a visible location, significantly improving the chances that users will launch your app again. This is one of the primary reasons why many developers still prefer to publish in App Stores, despite the various obstacles and risks involved. Mobile Safari also treats websites differently if users add them to their home screen. It doesn't aggressively remove local storage in these cases. However, I am not certain about Chrome's behavior in this regard.
- cxr 4y ago
  You have misunderstood the question. Chrome already allows you to "install" these things today. This post is about a change to Chrome's installation UI. Chrome's installation UI will support the "screenshots" property in the installation manifest now. When the person you are responding to writes, "What user problem is being solved by this?" they are not being asked to have the value proposition of "installable" Web apps explained to them. They are asking about exactly what they say they are: "Why do I need a screenshot of the "app" (i.e. webpage) I am already using?"
dahwolf 4y ago
"The distinction between a chrome app and a webpage is very minimal" It can be minimal, it can be significant difference, all depends on the PWA implementation. Installed app has a shortcut/desktop icon, which is good for return engagement. A flash screen ratehr than the blunt loading of a web page. The UI can be instantly there as well as some content using offline tactics. A PWA isn't compromised by all kinds of browser real estate. A proper PWA can definitely be better or approach a proper desktop app, but it's true that few implement them in that rich way.

greatgib 4y ago

For decade, it is the dream of Google and co to have "webapp desktop app" and so the browser could become a kind of app store. But I think that most users don't care and don't want to "install" webapp in their desktops.

blowski 4y ago
I've noticed a lot of IT departments want to have an internal appstore from which users can install webapps. So it's not necessarily for the end users but the device managers, where those are different entities.
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  Business users will replicate any product in excel and use an email attachment from 3 years ago in the deleted items folder as the point of reference if we don't make it super easy to find them.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    "The deleted items folder doesn't count towards user quota"
rektide 4y ago
I'd love to install we apps & make navigating there much faster. Giving them more permissions make sense. But I absolutely positively do not want an "app" like experience. I want it to open in the browser chromez where I have tabs, where I have forward & back, where I have an address bar. Native apps are awfulz, useless limited half-shells, and I want everything to be web. The fucked up conflict is that PWAs attempt to appeal to native app enthusiasts, give developers power to make it looks like a native app, but God damn native apps are shit & the web is 300x more reasonable fair & useful. I'd love to install some up jumped bookmarks. But wow native apps are just so limited, such a worse model to emulate, with so much less power. PWAs need a realignment where they can respect the web more. As is, they're more like retrogressive quasi-native apps. Yulou have a strictly downgraded experience for clicking the install, loose tons of thr basic web capabilities. Native sucks.

Alifatisk 4y ago

This is a good step I think, the way of installing an PWA atm is very unclear.