[Feature] Offline PWA / offline mode

[jsartisan]

I think it would be great if we can have a PWA ( mainly for desktop ) for appsmith so that users can open appsmith without the need to open the browser at all.

Front conversations

[jibe-b]

I definitely support this feature request.

As Appsmith already stores data in a database, the service worker needed by the PWA will be very simple.

The hosted instance already serves the app under https.

Hosted and self-hosted appsmith instances can be made PWA with very little burden.

[jibe-b]

And it's worth navigating in the code to see that there already is a service worker https://github.com/appsmithorg/appsmith/blob/release/app/client/src/serviceWorker.js

[Nikhil-Nandagopal]

@jibe-b thank you for upvoting this. Could you tell us a bit about your motivation for this feature?

[jibe-b]

I am often interacting with clients and the mobile version will be very useful to prototype something with them while discussing.

A PWA makes the experience more stable when the connexion is erratic and the cache enables to continue prototyping and have it deployed later.

[Nikhil-Nandagopal]

Another request for this Discord chat:

fountainheadYesterday at 10:15 AM
just wondering ... is there any possibility to do offline apps with Appsmith?

Abhishek NayakYesterday at 10:48 AM
How would the experience work? Like save form data offline till internet comes back on?

fountainheadYesterday at 4:15 PM
Yes, that would be fantastic. Basically, I got a requirement for a simple CRUD project for doctors who are inside a hospital with no network. If they can sync up when online, it would be awesome. Simple use-cases with single user crud operations (with no concurrency conflicts) is fine. I am not sure how the app would be stored / refreshed ... but  I am hoping a wrapped up app in a cordova shell or something should hopefully work.

[ryzam]

I think an integration with PouchDB is a good option to fully support offline first apps and automatically sync centralize database when network available.

[codedmind]

In the mean time isn't possible only add a manifest... so we are able to change it? As of today is already possible "install an appsmith app" as a browser app... but as manifest dossn't exist if something change (for example start url) we must unsintall the app and install it again

[kittiu]

+1

[iamenrique]

Interesting. Sure making the PWA could provide offline capabilities. But what about just having the fancy shortcut? It might be just a matter of providing the right <meta> tags? Me, as an Appsmith developer, would enable something in the "App Settings" (e.g. PWA settings) to define an icon, default name, etc. The app would still behave the exact same but without the phone's browser headers (internet access still required).

Attaching images of current behavior.