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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Windows allows for application protocols in which, through the registry, you specify a URL scheme and a command line to have that URL passed to your application. Its an easy way to hook a webbrowser up to your application. Anyone can read the doc above and then walk through the registry and pick out the application protocols but just from that info you can't tell what the application expects these URLs to look like. I did a bit of research on some of the application protocols I've seen which is listed below. Good places to look for information on URI schemes: Wikipedia URI scheme, and ESW Wiki UriSchemes.
| Scheme | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| search-ms | Windows Search Protocol |
The search-ms application protocol is a convention for querying the Windows Search index. The protocol enables applications, like Microsoft Windows Explorer, to query the index with
parameter-value arguments, including property arguments, previously saved searches, Advanced Query Syntax, Natural Query Syntax, and language code identifiers (LCIDs) for both the Indexer and
the query itself. See the MSDN docs for search-ms for more info. Example: search-ms:query=food |
| Explorer.AssocProtocol.search-ms | ||
| OneNote | OneNote Protocol |
From the OneNote help: /hyperlink "pagetarget" - Starts OneNote and opens the page specified by the pagetarget parameter. To obtain the hyperlink for any page in a OneNote
notebook, right-click its page tab and then click Copy Hyperlink to this Page.Example: onenote:///\\GUMMO\Users\davris\Documents\OneNote%20Notebooks\OneNote%202007%20Guide\Getting%20Started%20with%20OneNote.one#section-id={692F45F5-A42A-415B-8C0D-39A10E88A30F}&end |
| callto | Callto Protocol |
ESW Wiki Info on callto Skype callto info NetMeeting callto info Example: callto://+12125551234 |
| itpc | iTunes Podcast |
Tells iTunes to subscribe to an indicated podcast. iTunes documentation. C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /url "%1" Example: itpc:http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35 |
| iTunes.AssocProtocol.itpc | ||
| pcast | ||
| iTunes.AssocProtocol.pcast | ||
| Magnet | Magnet URI | Magnet URL scheme described by Wikipedia. Magnet URLs identify a resource by a hash of that resource so that when used in P2P scenarios no central authority is necessary to create URIs for a resource. |
| mailto | Mail Protocol |
RFC 2368 - Mailto URL Scheme. Mailto Syntax Opens mail programs with new message with some parameters filled in, such as the to, from, subject, and body. Example: mailto:?to=david.risney@gmail.com&subject=test&body=Test of mailto syntax |
| WindowsMail.Url.Mailto | ||
| MMS | mms Protocol |
MSDN describes associated protocols. Wikipedia describes MMS. "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%L" Also appears to be related to MMS cellphone messages: MMS IETF Draft. |
| WMP11.AssocProtocol.MMS | ||
| secondlife | [SecondLife] |
Opens SecondLife to the specified location, user, etc. SecondLife Wiki description of the URL scheme. "C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -set SystemLanguage en-us -url "%1" Example: secondlife://ahern/128/128/128 |
| skype | Skype Protocol |
Open Skype to call a user or phone number. Skype's documentation Wikipedia summary of skype URL scheme "C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" "/uri:%l" Example: skype:+14035551111?call |
| skype-plugin | Skype Plugin Protocol Handler |
Something to do with adding plugins to skype? Maybe. "C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe" "/uri:%1" |
| svn | SVN Protocol |
Opens TortoiseSVN to browse the repository URL specified in the URL. C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoiseProc.exe /command:repobrowser /path:"%1" |
| svn+ssh | ||
| tsvn | ||
| webcal | Webcal Protocol |
Wikipedia describes webcal URL scheme. Webcal URL scheme description. A URL that starts with webcal:// points to an Internet location that contains a calendar in iCalendar format. "C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\wincal.exe" /webcal "%1" Example: webcal://www.lightstalkers.org/LS.ics |
| WindowsCalendar.UrlWebcal.1 | ||
| zune | Zune Protocol |
Provides access to some Zune operations such as podcast subscription (via Zune Insider). "c:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -link:"%1" Example: zune://subscribe/?name=http://feeds.feedburner.com/wallstrip. |
| feed | Outlook Add RSS Feed |
Identify a resource that is a feed such as Atom or RSS. Implemented by Outlook to add the indicated feed to Outlook. Feed URI scheme pre-draft document "C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /share "%1" |
| im | IM Protocol |
RFC 3860 IM URI scheme description Like mailto but for instant messaging clients. Registered by Office Communicator but I was unable to get it to work as described in RFC 3860. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1" |
| tel | Tel Protocol |
RFC 5341 - tel URI scheme IANA assignment RFC 3966 - tel URI scheme description Call phone numbers via the tel URI scheme. Implemented by Office Communicator. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1" |
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