In the last installment we learned how to run JavaScripts over different threads by using WebWorkers. This time we’ll go a few steps further and learn how to use ServiceWorkers to achieve not only separation of code but also to build up client-side proxies. These proxies are the most important building blocks of so-called Progressive Web Apps as they allow web apps to function under rough conditions like slow bandwidths or broken connections. ServiceWorkers can also be used for push-based services or background synchronization as they run completely detached from the Browser DOM. A ServiceWorker is basically a SharedWorker with super-powers. However, the […]
Monthly Archives: November 2016
3 posts
In this installment we’ll write an app that retrieves data from a remote OData service and displays it in a data table. But unlike most of web apps that depend on some kind of external storage we’re not going to write the query-logic inside the app itself. Instead, we’ll outsource the data retrieval part into a separate TypeScript file that’ll constitute our WebWorker. This file will be loaded in a context separated from ‘window’ context. Our UI will be based on the nice jquery.dataTables library and just to make it somewhat more realistic we’ll implement another component, Console, for event logging. Our app’s […]
Just a few days ago, Mozilla announced a new Web API called FlyWeb that enables web pages to host web-servers that can expose their services to nearby browsers. With FlyWeb one can easily create discoverable services. Unlike with traditional HTTP users aren’t actively searching for services or content but instead let their browser accept mDNS announcements sent from nearby servers that implement the FlyWeb API. A server implementing this API is equally capable to deliver web pages like any other but it doesn’t have a DNS entry or IP address. Instead, certain announcement packets will be sent after the user has accepted to create and […]