Publish PWA to Play Store?

[Colombia Humana]

Hi there,

I wonder if it's possible to publish the Invision Community PWA to the Google Play Store?

[Nathan Explosion]

Theoretically, yes.

You would have to first extract the created APK file from an Android device, then sign-up for a developer account on Google, then go through the process of submitting the file to the Play Store.

And then for those with iOS devices who might ask the question: nope, Apple don't allow PWA apps to be uploaded to their store.

[Duken]

There should be a step by step tutorial for this. Just like the Social media APIs. 🙌

[Colombia Humana]

I've found this:

https://www.davrous.com/2020/02/07/publishing-your-pwa-in-the-play-store-in-a-couple-of-minutes-using-pwa-builder/

I hope some may find it useful... it worked for me...

Remember that Invision already provides the manifest, so you don't have to upload the manifest "pwabuilder" generates... Also, there seems to be a problem with their website, so you can go straight to https://www.pwabuilder.com/publish once you're ready setting it up.

And finally, remember to create and upload the digital access to your .well-known folder, as the tutorial states... Or read the readme available in the APK zip file pwabuilder provides; otherwise the app will keep the status bar if you've selected "fullscreen" in the settings.

I think in the future Invision could provide an easy way to create Offline pages, and include a "loading spinner" for the mobile version, since slow connections may have user experience issues if the host is too slow.