Avneesh Agarwal

Posted on Oct 5, 2021 • Edited on May 22, 2022 • Originally published at blog.avneesh.tech

How to Create a PWA With Next.js

#webdev #javascript #nextjs #react

Hey all,

This post is in collaboration with James Q Quick. If you like to see videos then check out this video by James Q Quick.

So let's get the party started.

What is a PWA?

PWA stands for Progressive web app. It is basically like a web app built with HTML, CSS, and Javascript with a few more features like-

Extremely Fast
Installable
Works in all browsers
Provides an offline page
Push notifications

Setup

Creating a Next.js app

npx create-next-app next-pwa-demo

I am going to convert the default Next.js template into a PWA, you can convert your web app.

Installing the required dependency

npm i next-pwa # npm
yarn add next-pwa # yarn

Generating a manifest

I am going to use Simicart for generating the manifest. You can simply add the details of your app and it will generate a manifest. Make sure to select standalone in the display

The generated manifest will look similar to this

{
  "theme_color": "#000000",
  "background_color": "#ffffff",
  "display": "standalone",
  "scope": "/",
  "start_url": "/",
  "name": "Next PWA",
  "short_name": "PWA",
  "description": "This app is to demo PWA in Next.js",
  "icons": [
    {
      "src": "/icon-192x192.png",
      "sizes": "192x192",
      "type": "image/png"
    },
    {
      "src": "/icon-256x256.png",
      "sizes": "256x256",
      "type": "image/png"
    },
    {
      "src": "/icon-384x384.png",
      "sizes": "384x384",
      "type": "image/png"
    },
    {
      "src": "/icon-512x512.png",
      "sizes": "512x512",
      "type": "image/png"
    }
  ]
}

After you are done with adding all the details, install the zip file and extract it. After you have extracted, drag and drop all the files in the public folder.
We will rename manifest.webmanifest to manifest.json.

Finally, the public directory should look like this

Creating `_document.js`

Create _document.js in the pages folder and add the following piece of code

import Document, { Html, Head, Main, NextScript } from "next/document";

class MyDocument extends Document {
  render() {
    return (
      <Html>
        <Head>
          <link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json" />
          <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/icon.png"></link>
          <meta name="theme-color" content="#fff" />
        </Head>
        <body>
          <Main />
          <NextScript />
        </body>
      </Html>
    );
  }
}

export default MyDocument;

Configuring PWA in Next config

We will need to add some data for configuring the PWA, so add this snippet in next.config.js.

const withPWA = require("next-pwa");

module.exports = withPWA({
  pwa: {
    dest: "public",
    register: true,
    skipWaiting: true,
  },
});

You have made your app a PWA 🥳

Making better development environment

Adding the auto-generated files to .gitignore

If you notice then a few files like service workers, and workbox has been added to the public folder.

These files change constantly and are not needed in your GitHub. So, do the following to remove them from production.

Delete sw.js, sw.js.map, workbox-****.js and workbox-****.js.map.
Add the files to .gitignore

# PWA files
**/public/sw.js
**/public/workbox-*.js
**/public/worker-*.js
**/public/sw.js.map
**/public/workbox-*.js.map
**/public/worker-*.js.map

Now if you restart the server then the filenames will be dark

Disabling PWA in development

In development, you might want to disable PWA because it gives a lot of console messages.

We will disable it like this in next.config.js

const withPWA = require("next-pwa");

module.exports = withPWA({
  pwa: {
    dest: "public",
    register: true,
    skipWaiting: true,
    disable: process.env.NODE_ENV === "development",
  },
});

Hope you found this useful. See ya in the next one ✌🏻

Useful links-

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Top comments (14)

Ha Tuan Em • Mar 11 '22

Thank you sir. It's help to start new project.

Abhay Prajapati • Mar 20 '22

great example

Abhishek Shinde • Mar 27 '22

Nice

sherazjaved • Oct 7 '21

This is really helpful..

Gabriel • Dec 4 '21

Have anyone managed to make it work with samsung internet? I've managed to make it work only on chrome.
pwa-template-xi.vercel.app/

Kevin Basset • Jan 3 '22

I checked your app on Samsung Galaxy S20 running Samsung Internet, and it seems to work fine. What problems are you experiencing?

Gabriel • Jan 3 '22

Not sure why but other PWA sites render the download button on the navigation bar but that isn't being rendered on the Samsung Galaxy S9+ I'm testing with.