How to test mobile chrome's "save to homescreen" prompt - html

I'm resurrecting an old project of mine as a way to learn some new stuff.
I'm doing this code lab from IO Add Your Web App to a User's Home Screen.
Is there any way, other than connecting a phone and waiting a lot, to test if users will be shown the prompt below?
I've tested it with Lighthouse and all tests come back green, but I've never seen the prompt. It feels very random at the moment.
The answer to This question puts the stuggle into perspective:
The user has visited your site twice over two separate days during the course of two weeks
Does that mean I need to wait 2 days between changes to see if it worked?

Enable chrome://flags/#bypass-app-banner-engagement-checks and you will see the banner as long as you have a manifest (configured correctly) and are on HTTPS and have a service worker.
Increasing Engagement with Web App Install Banners

anshulix has correctly answered the question, but I thought I'd put in a more verbose answer.
To remove the waiting and other requirements for the save to homescreen prompt, then you need to enable a flag.
Enable chrome://flags/#bypass-app-banner-engagement-checks and you will see the banner as long as you have a manifest (configured correctly) and are on HTTPS and have a service worker.
Which comes from Increasing Engagement with Web App Install Banners
It's important to remember that you are setting this flag on the mobile browser, not on your desktop browser. For some reason this didn't occur to be for a while!
You also need to restart mobile Chrome for the flag to take effect. If you've got your tabs mixed in with your other apps, this can be tricky because you need to hunt down all the tabs and close them. (Or find a better way to close Chrome.)
I found it much easier to do this debugging in Chrome Dev, rather than regular chrome because a) I know it's got the latest fixes in it, and b) because I only have 1 tab open, so it's easy to restart the browser.
If you are doing remote inspection, there is an issue about the messages that come up in the console. In Chrome 50 you get:
App banner not shown: could not determine the best icon to use
This doesn't seem to be true; in more recent builds—e.g. mobile Chrome 52—save to desktop works just fine. It's a disconcerting but useless error.
As a bonus helpful thing, realfavicongenerator does an excellent job of generating all the icons and the manifest file that you need.

Related

Cannot seem to interact with dynamic script in multiple browsers

A couple months ago I noticed that when using my PC instead of phone to access my online banking, the login screen would load but the Username field was greyed out, as was the Continue button. (hsbc.ca)
The register hyperlink works.
I thought it was an issue with their site, used my phone.
About a month ago, I noticed that when attachments were in my gmail, I could no longer click on them to view them. Clicking them had no discernable effect. I had to specifically download them first.
About a week ago I logged into dndbeyond.com for the first time in a while. Noticed that in lists of spells or feats, where I used to be able to click on an entry and it would expand to show more information, clicking on it does nothing. Unless I click on the name of the feature, which is a url to a new page specific to that feature.
I have tried Chrome (my default), Edge, and Firefox, and the issue persists in all of them. I have done a virus scan, cleared cookies/cache, and I just have no idea what is going on. Chrome is the only browser that has plugins for ad-blocking, as I do not use the other browsers.
Two other computers here have no issues, one on a VPN, one not. I have tried with and without my VPN. OS is Windows 10 Home, OS is fully updated. As are the browsers.
I cannot recall any software being installed prior to the issue that might be the culprit.
I would appreciate any help that could be offered.
EDIT 1: I downloaded CCleaner and after scanning, cleaning junk, checking and resolving registry issues, the issue still persists.

Certain webpages only half loading

Good day,
Since moving house and having my new internet (and new ISP) installed, some web-pages only half-load and I constantly get cloud-flare warnings requesting that I confirm that I am not a robot. I did not have this problem with the previous ISP. I have attached some examples of the issues I'm having. This does not appear to be a "Chrome-only" thing as I get the same results with IE.
1. The first image shows the web page loading, but not giving all the information.
2. The second image shows the warnings that constantly pop up.
3. The third image is just an example of buttons that won't load on clicking, and some of those buttons don't even let me click them at
all.
Issue:
Can't load into certain pages, and can't click certain buttons, and keep getting this cloud-flare thing.
Things I have tried:
- Restarting computer
- Reinstalling chrome
- DNS flushing using the command prompt
- Changing DNS to the google DNS
Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I'm imagining your computer is the same, but your router is new/different (for the new ISP)? Maybe your computer has existing proxy settings which were specific to your old ISP, and won't work for the new one.
Search 'proxy' in Windows search and disable any custom proxies.
I've got the same issue as well when i moved into my new house. When i researched some more and talked with my tech-savvy cousin, he said that it could be because the internet connection isn't strong (some of the data gets lost in the way) or the ISP isn't allowing you to do the things that you want to do. Sometimes this occurs when you are asking for a lot of data. It is a security feature. Call them and ask why this is happening. Maybe it's different.
Also, check if you have a VPN on. I could also disrupt the websites.
Hope this was useful!!
Try connecting a different device (like an Xbox, or PS, or your phone) and see what happens. If it can connect to the devices mentioned above correctly, then the problem is with your PC or laptop or apple device.
Apparently the issue had to do with the IP address. They gave me my own one and all was well in the world.

Dev Tools Crashing on Chrome Version 50.0.2661.102 m

So i have the following problem.
Any time i click on a request to view the headers/payload/response
i receive a not responding window.
If i wait ~2 minutes it works.
So what i receive here is a developer tools not responsive status when working on local machine.
I tried to re-install chrome. Nothing changed.
Current Version is: Version 50.0.2661.102 m listed as up to date.
Is there any possibility to get some logs or did anyone faced the same problem?
I think it can be relevant if i show what extensions i have installed.
But i tried to enable/disable them and nothing changed.
And i get the same comportment in incognito mode too.
Later edit: I somehow identified the problem. Idea is that chrome is trying to display the cookie (request headers) which was 18k characters long and it looks like this is slowing a lot developer tools and sometimes make him crash.
I just saw that in Mozilla cookies are limited to a couple of characters (display perspective) and after that they show ...
I can't find any known issues regarding this crash, so here are a couple of steps you could take:
Use the Chrome Cleanup Tool and see if that helps.
Fully clean and re-install Chrome (including deleting user folders). If it works after that, you can slowly add extensions and plugins back and see if any reintroduce the problem.

Push notification for Google Chrome running on Windows?

I usually work locally and in an RDP session 50/50. I've two Google Chromes launched locally and in the terminal session. I am tired of copying and pasting URLs back and forth. I thought abount making an extension for Chrome like the popular extension Chrome2phone. But after going into the details of how the Chrome2phone works I understand that there is possibly no such option as the push notification for a Chrome instance running on a usual desktop computer. Chrome2phone uses GCM to send/recieve messages. But GCM is only for Android devices..
Does anyone know if it is possible to implement push notifications between two Chromes running on different computer? I understand that this is a really weird question but nevertheless.. Maybe someone had this experience and can share it.
Thank you.
If you are logged into chrome, you can also solve this using Chrome Sync, using tab sync. Just go to the new tab page, and look at "Other Devices" at the bottom, and you can see a tab that another computer is looking at, and go to it on this desktop.
There is now. Google Cloud Messaging for Chrome.
I wonder if it can be made to work with Firefox or even a desktop application.

Application cache only when users want it?

Some browsers does not asks the client if he want use the application cache, but simply just downloads the whole thing at first visist (e.g. the browser on android). That can cause troubles when the application cache is many MB's and the client is on a mobile network - that is expensive! And is it possible to stop the cache from being downloaded? Pressing the menu button on e.g. android will not close the browser, it will be running in the background.
Is it a good idea to only add the manifest based on a cookie set when the client pushes a "hey i want to offline cache this site" button? Will that cause any new challenges?
I've tested this, and it seems to work. Needs more testing though. Can provide a link to the site in about two weeks if anyone is interrested.
One possible solution, as a you hinted at yourself, would be to ask the user if he/she wants to cache the app offline, and if so, only then redirect to a page which has a link to the manifest file (which is subsequently downloaded by the browser). You cannot stop a download midway unless of course, your network disconnects mid way.