Close browser window and open PWA once PWA installed

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I have Chrome installing my PWA on Android - once it's installed I'd like to automatically close the browser window it was installed from, and open the PWA (so the user doesn't continue in the browser window, thinking they're using the PWA) - is this possible?

manpreet 2 years ago

Based from this blog post:

When the PWA is installed, it will appear in the home screen, in the app launcher, in Settings and as any other first-class citizen app in the OS, including information on battery and space used in the system.

There's a tracking event when the user opens the app from the home screen. That means the user has clicked the app's icon or, on Android with WebAPK support, also clicked on a link pointing to the PWA scope and need to close the browser.

start_url: '/?utm_source=standalone&utm_medium=pwa'

Also, the following script leaves us a boolean stating if the user is currently in a browser (true) or a standalone app mode (false)

var isPWAinBrowser = true;
// replace standalone with fullscreen or minimal-ui according to your manifest
if (matchMedia('(display-mode: standalone)').matches) {
     // Android and iOS 11.3+
     isPWAinBrowser = false;
} else if ('standalone' in navigator) {
     // useful for iOS < 11.3
     isPWAinBrowser = !navigator.standalone;
}