Offline / Cache requirement for PWA certification

[Michaela Merz]

With the latest Google Chrome we are being warned that pages have to have offline capabilities or lose PWA certification. This poses a major problem for us, maybe for others as well.

I get it. PWAs should display some meaningful content even when online. But here's the thing: What if the vast majority of content is dynamically created server side? Our environment creates specific pages based on language settings,  user level and other specific rules. Additionally, the user can't do anything really when offline, because we can't cache all the gigabytes of data shown in his directory. Queuing uploads / downloads wouldn't work either for specific reasons I can't discuss here.  

While the vast majority of PWAs may find a way to fulfill the offline capable requirements, I am sure a number of complex environments will have problems.

However - if we could define an offline fallback page in the manifest, we would at least be able to direct a user to the still useful areas which can be designed in a way that they are cacheable. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Michaela

[Zachary Yaro]

The requirement is that opening the app must not return an error when offline.  If your app's service worker serves a custom offline fallback page (ideally explaining to users why they must connect to the Internet to use your app, and with the ability to reload once connected) rather than a more substantial offline experience, my understanding is that still meets the requirements.  The goal is for the offline experience to be specific to your app (as it would be with a native app), rather than a generic browser offline page.

I hope that helps.

Zachary Yaro