The Redmond software giant has announced that they are launching the support for Edge based Progressive Web Apps. Such apps are able to utilize the APis provided by the latest Edge browser, which uses the open-source Chromium engine. Web Assembly, Web Bluetooth, Web USB, Web Share, Web Shortcuts - all these new features are available via the newest Edge platform.
Earlier, the company was accepting and hosting legacy EdgeHTML-based apps in the Microsoft Store. Now, Microsoft is interesting in having apps that are supercharged by all the recent updates that the Chromium backend provides. The apps built using it look and active native to the OS, and open directly like a standalone app. This is what Microsoft is coming to since 2003 or so.
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Microsoft has been able to bring all the common functionality developers used UWP APIs for before to standard Web APIs:
· Shortcuts (previously called Jumplists)
Microsoft's PWABuilder is already updated with support for Chromium-based Edge PWAs. However, there are a few limitations.
Key Differences from the EdgeHTML package
With the move to this new package, there are some features that worked in the EdgeHTML package that this new Chromium Edge based package is missing. These features are:
• No support for Live Tiles
• No splash screen
• Missing Analytics in the Partner Center
Microsoft noted the following.
If your PWA is already in the Microsoft Store using the EdgeHTML package and a user is logged in, the user will need to re-authenticate in the new Edge package.
• A user needs to have Microsoft Edge installed. If Microsoft Edge is not installed the user will be prompted to install Edge first before installing the app. As we continue our roll-out of Edge, we expect less and less users to hit this.
Interested visitors can learn more from the official announcement available on Medium.
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