PWA to use Plugins

Hi,
I’ve been around the block a few times with building native apps for Android and IOS and am attempting to dip my toe in the PWA waters.
My apps publish up nicely to my webserver and they work absolutely fine until i need to take photos and use a camera-preview plugin.

Is there a simple answer to this - (am I missing something) or is this where it gets really complicated and means I’ll have to deploy the app to PWA then start editing code on my webserver to start using the app the way it runs on my native builds?

(I’m really hoping that maybe my issue is one of missing permissions or ‘on event’ code that’ll suddenly fire up the plugins involved!)

Thanks,
Neil

Which plugins are you using?

Among others :-

cordova-plugin-camera
cordova-plugin-camera-preview

They’ll only work in Cordova projects, which is what VoltBuilder uses.

These plugins use native code, which will not run in browser. PWAs need to be able to run in the browser.

Right, understood.
So are there PWA specific plugins available?
I’m guessing I’ll have to start Googling?

PWA are nothing special when it comes to running code - it’s the same JavaScript. The difference is that it has a way of caching the JavaScript so the app can run offline.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Well, simply to have my Apps (which run on native Android and IOS) run as PWAs with the camera and camera preview features working (along with a few others - which are less important for now (OCR app etc)
I’m not a web programmer ( although I’m always learning :slight_smile: ) so I’m exploring how to convert the existing app code into something that works via PWA.

So, are you trying to come up with a version of your app which runs on the desktop?

No. Ideally I’d like a PWA which works equally well on IPad and Android tablets.
Our apps are used by a finite number of people to work with backoffice systems. Installing via apk is fine on Android, but installing on Ipad is problematic, hence I was exploring using PWAs as an alternative.

If you need native code libraries, PWA isn’t going to help. They are for all JavaScript projects.

@Neil_HNF
I have a very basic PWA which can take, view and save a png photo with camera. See
https://bsommer.de/nsbapps/FotoPNG/index.html
Maybe this could be a first step with camera and PWA.
Sorry. Text is in German. I can translate or explain if needed.
Bernd

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Hi Bernd,
That looks very interesting. Would it be possible to see the code involved in this?
Thanks,
Neil

Currently I am in a hotel network and struggle with strange restrictions. Not certain, if I can find and send the source from my notebook. Will try tomorrow. Should be at home again on July 12. Meanwhile you could try to view the source code with the web app and Chrome debugger.

1 Like

This is an older version. Just tried. Worked. See attachment,
FotoPNG.appstudio.zip (471.3 KB)

Thank you! Will take a look asap!