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The only thing holding me back from using PWA's right now is tabbed mode [1]. Browser tabs are so useful and having them open in new windows or in the system b

The only thing holding me back from using PWA's right now is tabbed mode [1]. Browser tabs are so useful and having them open in new windows or in the system browser is a bad experience. Not sure why this is taking so long, there have been prototypes for years. Not like its even a security question just bringing over a UI that already exists in the browser. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/tabbed-application-mode https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/tabbed-applic...

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Tabbed isnt enough for me. I don't want an app. I want a website. I want my user-agent! My user agent is what I know, affords me URLs & extensions and a powerful UI with lots of options. The PWA thing seems sick to me. Henry Ford listens to market research and rebuilds his car as a mechanized horse. For me, the UX is strictly worse in every way. (And I already knew how to put links to webpages on my home screens). There does seem to be a browser display mode, but it's up to the app maker to decide for the user what mode the app will be in. Why?! > Progressive Web Apps can run in various display modes determined by the display property in the web app manifest. Examples are fullscreen, standalone, minimal-ui, and browser. It makes me so sad how much lesser a person a user of a PWA is. The utter lack of user agent, being cast to whatever is provided by the maker, is a horrifying loss. All to ape what felt to me like the descending losing old-guard technologies.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  I assume I'm being down voted by pro-native people for calling their preferred tech descending losing old-guard technologies. Does anyone actually have any comments or reactions to what I was actually arguing about? PWAs being such brutal downgrade over what the web browser offers seems glaringly obvious to me; I'm shocked there's not more outcry. If people actually feel otherwise, please leave some arguments out in support of blowing away the user agent. This feels like it always has been the nexus of power where the web gets consistent enriching capabilities and affordances. It's what has made the web powerful & better, rather than every user being cast naked &bat the mercies into whatever app a company decides to cook up. There's a submission right now on The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design & the browser alone satisfies 6 or 7 of these, by my judgement, whereas native & PWA apps require the app to carefully construct it's own paradigm that can fully meet these user needs. The user agent is a helpful baseline, and it seems mad that PWAs throw it away to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38916663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38916663 https://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html https://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html If people think PWAs offer anything or make any sense versus the web browser, I'd love to hear why. Tabbed design was sooo late relatively to emerge in PWA space, and it feels like just one of a million affordances that are going to be half baked recreations of what we already had in the browser. How is being an app in an OS better than being a tab in a much more powerful & competent & featureful user-agent?
  - int_19h 3y ago
    For things that make sense as a websites, sure, I do want a website. But some websites really are apps, and browser-oriented chrome just gets in the way.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

Tabbed isnt enough for me. I don't want an app. I want a website. I want my user-agent! My user agent is what I know, affords me URLs & extensions and a powerful UI with lots of options. The PWA thing seems sick to me. Henry Ford listens to market research and rebuilds his car as a mechanized horse. For me, the UX is strictly worse in every way. (And I already knew how to put links to webpages on my home screens). There does seem to be a browser display mode, but it's up to the app maker to decide for the user what mode the app will be in. Why?! > Progressive Web Apps can run in various display modes determined by the display property in the web app manifest. Examples are fullscreen, standalone, minimal-ui, and browser. It makes me so sad how much lesser a person a user of a PWA is. The utter lack of user agent, being cast to whatever is provided by the maker, is a horrifying loss. All to ape what felt to me like the descending losing old-guard technologies.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I assume I'm being down voted by pro-native people for calling their preferred tech descending losing old-guard technologies. Does anyone actually have any comments or reactions to what I was actually arguing about? PWAs being such brutal downgrade over what the web browser offers seems glaringly obvious to me; I'm shocked there's not more outcry. If people actually feel otherwise, please leave some arguments out in support of blowing away the user agent. This feels like it always has been the nexus of power where the web gets consistent enriching capabilities and affordances. It's what has made the web powerful & better, rather than every user being cast naked &bat the mercies into whatever app a company decides to cook up. There's a submission right now on The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design & the browser alone satisfies 6 or 7 of these, by my judgement, whereas native & PWA apps require the app to carefully construct it's own paradigm that can fully meet these user needs. The user agent is a helpful baseline, and it seems mad that PWAs throw it away to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38916663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38916663 https://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html https://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html If people think PWAs offer anything or make any sense versus the web browser, I'd love to hear why. Tabbed design was sooo late relatively to emerge in PWA space, and it feels like just one of a million affordances that are going to be half baked recreations of what we already had in the browser. How is being an app in an OS better than being a tab in a much more powerful & competent & featureful user-agent?
- int_19h 3y ago
  For things that make sense as a websites, sure, I do want a website. But some websites really are apps, and browser-oriented chrome just gets in the way.