Folks familiar with JavaScript UWP apps in Win10 have often been confused by what PWAs in Win10 actually are. TLDR: PWAs in Win10 are simply JavaScript UWP apps. The main difference between these
JS UWP Apps and our non-PWA JS UWP apps are our target end developer audience, and how we get Win10 PWAs into the Microsoft Store. See this Win10 blog post on PWAs on Win10 for related info.
Web App
On the web a subset of web sites are web apps. These are web sites that have app like behavior - that is a user might call it an app like Outlook, Maps or Gmail. And they may also have a W3C app manifest.
A subset of web apps are progressive web apps. Progressive web apps are web apps that have a W3C app manifest and a service worker. Various
OSes are beginning to support PWAs as first class apps on their platform. This is true for Win10 as well in which PWAs are run as a WWA.
Windows Web App
In Win10 a WWA (Windows Web App) is an unofficial term for a JavaScript UWP app. These are UWP apps so they have an AppxManifest.xml, they are packaged in an Appx package, they run in an App
Container, they use WinRT APIs, and are installed via the Microsoft Store. Specific to WWAs though, is that the AppxManifest.xml specifies a StartPage attribute identifying some HTML content to
be used as the app. When the app is activated the OS will create a WWAHost.exe process that hosts the HTML content using the EdgeHtml rendering engine.
Packaged vs Hosted Web App
Within that we have a notion of a packaged web app and an HWA (hosted web app). There's no real technical distinction for the end developer between these two. The only real difference is whether
the StartPage identifies remote HTML content on the web (HWA), or packaged HTML content from the app's appx package (packaged web app). An end developer may create an app that is a mix of these
as well, with HTML content in the package and HTML content from the web. These terms are more like ends on a continuum and identifying two different developer scenarios since the underlying
technical aspect is pretty much identical.
Win10 PWA
Win10 PWAs are simply HWAs that specify a StartPage of a URI for a PWA on the web. These are still JavaScript UWP apps with all the same behavior and abilities as other UWP apps. We have two ways
of getting PWAs into the Microsoft Store as Win10 PWAs. The first is PWA Builder which is a tool that helps PWA end developers create and submit to the
Microsoft Store a Win10 PWA appx package. The second is a crawler that runs over the web looking for PWAs which we convert and submit to the Store using an automated PWA Builder-like tool to
create a Win10 PWA from PWAs on the web (see Welcoming PWAs to Win10 for more info).
In both cases the conversion involves examining the PWAs W3C app manifest and producing a corresponding AppxManifest.xml. Not all features supported by AppxManifest.xml are also available in the
W3c app manifest. But the result of PWA Builder can be a working starting point for end developers who can then update the AppxManifest.xml as they like to support features like share targets or
others not available in W3C app manifests.
Application Content URI Rules (ACUR from now on) defines the bounds of
the web that make up the Microsoft Store application. Package content via the ms-appx URI scheme is automatically considered part of the app. But if you have content on the web via http or https
you can use ACUR to declare to Windows that those URIs are also part of your application. When your app navigates to URIs on the web those URIs will be matched against the ACUR to determine if
they are part of your app or not. The documentation for how matching is done on the wildcard URIs in the ACUR Rule elements is not very helpful on MSDN so here are some notes.
Rules
You can have up to 100 Rule XML elements per ApplicationContentUriRules element. Each has a Match attribute that can be up to 2084 characters long. The content of the Match attribute is parsed
with CreateUri and when matching against URIs on the web additional wildcard processing is performed. I’ll call the
URI from the ACUR Rule the rule URI and the URI we compare it to found during app navigation the navigation URI.
The rule URI is matched to a navigation URI by URI component: scheme, username, password, host, port, path, query, and fragment. If a component does not exist on the rule URI then it matches any
value of that component in the navigation URI. For example, a rule URI with no fragment will match a navigation URI with no fragment, with an empty string fragment, or a fragment with any value
in it.
Asterisk
Each component except the port may have up to 8 asterisks. Two asterisks in a row counts as an escape and will match 1 literal asterisk. For scheme, username, password, query and fragment the
asterisk matches whatever it can within the component.
Host
For the host, if the host consists of exactly one single asterisk then it matches anything. Otherwise an asterisk in a host only matches within its domain name label. For example,
http://*.example.com will match http://a.example.com/ but not http://b.a.example.com/ or http://example.com/. And http://*/ will match http://example.com, http://a.example.com/, and
http://b.a.example.com/. However the Store places restrictions on submitting apps that use the http://* rule or rules with an asterisk in the second effective domain name label. For example,
http://*.com is also restricted for Store submission.
Path
For the path, an asterisk matches within the path segment. For example, http://example.com/a/*/c will match http://example.com/a/b/c and http://example.com/a//c but not http://example.com/a/b/b/c
or http://example.com/a/c
Additionally for the path, if the path ends with a slash then it matches any path that starts with that same path. For example, http://example.com/a/ will match http://example.com/a/b and
http://example.com/a/b/c/d/e/, but not http://example.com/b/.
If the path doesn’t end with a slash then there is no suffix matching performed. For example, http://example.com/a will match only http://example.com/a and no URIs with a different path.
As a part of parsing the rule URI and the navigation URI, CreateUri will perform URI normalization and so the hostname and scheme will be made lower case (casing matters in all other parts of the
URI and case sensitive comparisons will be performed), IDN normalization will be performed, ‘.’ and ‘..’ path segments will be resolved and other normalizations as described in the CreateUri
documentation.
This 30 day mission will help our researchers learn how isolation and close quarters affect individual and group behavior. This study at our Johnson Space Center prepares us for long duration
space missions, like a trip to an asteroid or even to Mars.
The Human Research Exploration Analog (HERA) that the crew members will be living in is one compact, science-making house. But
unlike in a normal house, these inhabitants won’t go outside for 30 days. Their communication with the rest of planet Earth will also be very limited, and they won’t have any access to
internet. So no checking social media kids!
The only people they will talk with regularly are mission control and each other.
The crew member selection process is based on a number of criteria, including the same criteria for astronaut selection.
What will they be doing?
Because this mission simulates a 715-day journey to a Near-Earth asteroid, the four crew members will complete activities similar to what would happen during an outbound transit, on location at
the asteroid, and the return transit phases of a mission (just in a bit of an accelerated timeframe). This simulation means that even when communicating with mission control, there will be a
delay on all communications ranging from 1 to 10 minutes each way. The crew will also perform virtual spacewalk missions once they reach their destination, where they will inspect the asteroid
and collect samples from it.
A few other details:
The crew follows a timeline that is similar to one used for the ISS crew.
They work 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday. This includes time for daily planning, conferences, meals and exercises.
They will be growing and taking care of plants and brine shrimp, which they will analyze and document.
But beware! While we do all we can to avoid crises during missions, crews need to be able to respond in the event of an emergency. The HERA crew will conduct a couple of emergency scenario
simulations, including one that will require them to maneuver through a debris field during the Earth-bound phase of the mission.
Throughout the mission, researchers will gather information about cohabitation, teamwork, team cohesion, mood, performance and overall well-being. The crew members will be tracked by numerous
devices that each capture different types of data.
Past HERA crew members wore a sensor that recorded heart rate, distance, motion and sound intensity. When crew members were
working together, the sensor would also record their proximity as well, helping investigators learn about team cohesion.
Researchers also learned about how crew members react to stress by recording and analyzing verbal interactions and by analyzing “markers” in blood and saliva samples.
In total, this mission will include 19 individual investigations across key human research elements. From psychological to physiological experiments, the crew members will help prepare us for
future missions.
This 30 day mission will help our researchers learn how isolation and close quarters affect individual and group behavior. This study at our Johnson Space Center prepares us for long duration
space missions, like a trip to an asteroid or even to Mars.
The Human Research Exploration Analog (HERA) that the crew members will be living in is one compact, science-making house. But
unlike in a normal house, these inhabitants won’t go outside for 30 days. Their communication with the rest of planet Earth will also be very limited, and they won’t have any access to
internet. So no checking social media kids!
The only people they will talk with regularly are mission control and each other.
The crew member selection process is based on a number of criteria, including the same criteria for astronaut selection.
What will they be doing?
Because this mission simulates a 715-day journey to a Near-Earth asteroid, the four crew members will complete activities similar to what would happen during an outbound transit, on location at
the asteroid, and the return transit phases of a mission (just in a bit of an accelerated timeframe). This simulation means that even when communicating with mission control, there will be a
delay on all communications ranging from 1 to 10 minutes each way. The crew will also perform virtual spacewalk missions once they reach their destination, where they will inspect the asteroid
and collect samples from it.
A few other details:
The crew follows a timeline that is similar to one used for the ISS crew.
They work 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday. This includes time for daily planning, conferences, meals and exercises.
They will be growing and taking care of plants and brine shrimp, which they will analyze and document.
But beware! While we do all we can to avoid crises during missions, crews need to be able to respond in the event of an emergency. The HERA crew will conduct a couple of emergency scenario
simulations, including one that will require them to maneuver through a debris field during the Earth-bound phase of the mission.
Throughout the mission, researchers will gather information about cohabitation, teamwork, team cohesion, mood, performance and overall well-being. The crew members will be tracked by numerous
devices that each capture different types of data.
Past HERA crew members wore a sensor that recorded heart rate, distance, motion and sound intensity. When crew members were
working together, the sensor would also record their proximity as well, helping investigators learn about team cohesion.
Researchers also learned about how crew members react to stress by recording and analyzing verbal interactions and by analyzing “markers” in blood and saliva samples.
In total, this mission will include 19 individual investigations across key human research elements. From psychological to physiological experiments, the crew members will help prepare us for
future missions.
I've put a new app on the Windows Store: Cloud Share. It connects the web to your Windows 8 share
charm.
I did the development on GitHub and quite enjoyed myself. I wasn't sure I liked the game-ification of development in GitHub's dashboard
showing you your longest development streak in days. However I realized that it encourages me to do work on my personal project and anything that aids in holding my attention on and helping me
finish these projects is a good thing.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS RIDICULOUS STRIP SEARCH SPOILERS
So I lost. Wah, boohoo, etc etc. It doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. I love The Last Halloween. If you also loved The Last Halloween, don’t worry, it’s happening. But first I have to
Kickstart it! The Kickstarter goes up within the next few days, and I hope you guys will fund it, if you’ll have me.
I’ll do a much larger post when the Kickstarter kickstarts so you’ll all know my feelings and how great everything is and how much you will be into backing it.
I’m one of these guys being sshhhhhsh’ed. Abby had the best comics on Strip Search and so for my continued entertainment I shall help kickstart!
PPACA (aka Obamacare) broken down into its main subsections with brief explinations and citations linking into the actual PPACA document (why is it always PDF?).
Its interesting to see the very small number of parts folks are complaining about versus the rest which mostly strikes me as “how could this not already be the case?”
I’m no expert, and everything I posted here I attribute mostly to Wikipedia or the
actual bill itself, with an occasional Google search to clarify stuff. I am absolutely not a difinitive source or expert. I was just trying to simplify things as best I can without dumbing
them down. I’m glad that many of you found this helpful.”
Hey guys, tonight is this song's first night out. Can you help it find a few million
ears to hang out in? http://music.mikephirman.com/track/i-c-a-n-t-s-p-e-l-l …
Very helpful site to determine which channels you're likely able to receive OTA
based on your address or zip code: http://gomohu.com/xbox/
The Microsoft Edge @MSEdgeDev team is
hiring a Senior Software Engineer! http://bit.ly/1CRaQz8 . Help us make the web better #cpp #jobs
I miss him so much. I hope reading these stories will help you get why everyone is so
devastated about his passing: http://bit.ly/1EeLDfW
David Risney
@David_Risney :
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