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Getting Started

You can find a set of examples projects on Vite Plugin PWA GitHub repo.

All the examples projects are under examples package/directory of the repo root directory.

INFO

The main purpose of these examples projects is to test the service worker and not to meet the PWA Minimal Requirements, that is, if you use any of these examples for your projects, you will need to modify the code supplied and then test that it meets the PWA Minimal Requirements. Almost all the examples projects should meet PWA Minimal Requirements, but you must check it on your target project.

All the examples projects use @rollup/plugin-replace to configure a timestamp initialized to now on each build, and so, the service worker will be regenerated/versioned on each build: this timestamp will help us since the service worker won't be regenerated/versioned if none source code changed (on your project you shouldn't want this behavior, you should want to only regenerate/version the service worker when your source code change).

TRY TO AVOID INCLUDING AUTOMATIC TIMESTAMP ON YOU APPLICATION IF YOU DON'T CHANGE YOUR CODE

We use the timestamp in the examples projects to avoid having to touch a file each time we need to test: for example, to test Prompt for update, we need to install the service worker first time (first build), then rebuild and restart the example project and finally refresh the browser to check the Prompt for update is shown.

How to run examples projects?

If you want to run any of the examples projects you will need to download/clone to your local machine the Vite Plugin PWA GitHub repo.

You will need node 14 (or newer) to be able to build the Vite Plugin PWA.

WARNING

Before following the instructions below, read the Contribution Guide.

If you don't have installed PNPM, you must install it globally via npm:

shell
npm install -g pnpm
npm install -g pnpm

Once the repo is on your local machine, you must install project dependencies and build the vite-plugin-pwa plugin, just run (from vite-plugin-pwa directory cloned locally):

shell
pnpm install
pnpm run build
pnpm install
pnpm run build

We use PNPM but should work with any package manager, for example, with YARN:

shell
yarn && yarn build
yarn && yarn build

INFO

From here on, we will only show the commands to run the examples projects using PNPM, we leave it to you how to execute them with any other package manager.

Before we start running the examples projects, you should consider the following:

  • Use Chromium based browser: Chrome, Chromium or Edge
  • All the examples that are executed in this guide will be done over https, that is, all the projects will respond at address https://localhost
  • When testing an example project, the service worker will be installed in https://localhost, and so, subsequent tests in another examples projects may interfere with the previous test, because the service worker of the previous project will keep installed on the browser
  • Tests should be done on a private window, and so, browser addons/plugins will not interfere with the test

To avoid service worker interference, you should do the following tasks when switching between examples projects:

  • Open dev tools (Option + ⌘ + J on macOS, Shift + CTRL + J on Windows/Linux)
  • Go to Application > Storage, you should check following checkboxes:
    • Application: [x] Unregister service worker
    • Storage: [x] Local and session storage
    • Cache: [x] Cache storage and [x] Application cache
  • Click on Clear site data button
  • Go to Application > Service Workers and check the current service worker is missing or has the state deleted

Once we remove the service worker, run the corresponding script and just press browser Refresh button (or enter https://localhost on browser address).

How to test the examples projects Offline?

To test any of the examples projects (or your project) on offline, just open dev tools (Option + ⌘ + J on macOS, Shift + CTRL + J on Windows/Linux) and go to Application > Network, then locate No throttling selector: open it and select Offline option.

A common pitfall is to select Offline option, then restart the example project (or your project), and refresh the page. In that case, you will have unexpected behavior, and you should remove the service worker.

If you click the browser Refresh button, you can inspect Application > Network tab on dev tools to check that the Service Worker is serving all assets instead request them to the server.

DANGER

Don't do a hard refresh since it will force the browser to go to the server, and then you will get No internet connection page.

Available Examples Projects

WARNING

Before following the instructions below, read the Contribution Guide.

Make sure you install project dependencies, and build the repo on your local clone/fork:

shell
cd vite-plugin-pwa
pnpm install
pnpm run build
cd vite-plugin-pwa
pnpm install
pnpm run build

To run the examples, execute the following script from your shell (from root folder), it will start a CLI where you will select the framework and the pwa options:

shell
pnpm run examples
pnpm run examples

If you don't run pnpm build first, you may see an error like, failed to load config or Please verify that the package.json has a valid "main" entry.

We provide the following examples projects:

Released under the MIT License.