App of the Forum

[DonBot]

I love how the app of the forum thread is busier than the rest of the forum

[TripleU]

i think i’ll pay a fiver shnuk to do it… 30$…

please guys, write all problems/requirements

[Dev-in-the-BM]

@A.I.V is already working on it.

@A.I.V

I’m currently working on a solution that will also work on devices where WebView has issues, such as the TCL Flip2.
I’m using Firefox’s GeckoView.

[kosherboy]

My conversation with The SLEKE team:

Hi I am pretty active on a certain forum called Jtech forums. I would love to have an app of these forums I am no developer to develop one so so far we’ve been using the web to APK. The problem with this is it comes out to be very laggy and slow.

I really would love to have a web to APK idea that does not run on webview and also cannot open external links. Our users do not want access to a full browser so if you can open external links there’s no point.

Somebody referred me to you telling me you guys are very nice and would share how you guys made a similar thing on your phone.

Waiting to your back from you,
KosherBoy

They got back to me:

Hey there! It can be difficult to do what you are wanting to do, but well worth the effort.

For a smoother experience have you considered a Progressive Web App (PWA) instead of a webview?

A good place to start may be exploring the PWA route with some custom logic to prevent opening of external links.

Let me know if you’ve explored this option!

Further, if you have access to the forum backend, this becomes a lot easier. You could consider asking Jtech forums to make forum data available via REST api which you could then use to build your own native app with all the controls you want.

Cheers,
The SLEKE. Team

I didn’t really understand what he said cause I ain’t no dev, but I am putting this out here in case it’s useful to someone.

[Dev-in-the-BM]

Their first suggestion was to build a PWA/TWA WebApp:

@kosherboy

For a smoother experience have you considered a Progressive Web App (PWA) instead of a webview?
A good place to start may be exploring the PWA route

We’ve already made a half-hearted attempt at that, it worked for some people, and for many others it didn’t:

@Dev-in-the-BM

[center] [size=130]PWA’s, TWA’s, & Chrome [/size] [/center]
copilot:

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are like websites that act like apps on your phone. They can work offline, send you notifications, and be added to your home screen, just like regular apps.

Trusted Web Activities (TWAs)

Trusted Web Activities (TWAs) are a way to package these web apps (PWAs) as Android apps so they can be found and downloaded from the Google Play Store. They use the Chrome browser to run, but you won’t see the usual browser stuff like the address bar.

Connection with Chrome

When you add a PWA to your home screen using Chrome, it creates a shortcut that opens the app without any browser interface, making it feel like a native app. TWAs take this even further by letting developers turn PWAs into full Android apps that you can install from the Play Store.

So, in short, PWAs and TWAs let you use web apps as if they were native apps on your phone, with Chrome playing a big role in making this possible.

In other words, PWA is a web technology that is very app-like.

TWA is when a PWA site is converted to a standalone, Chrome-dependent, app.

When you use Chrome to put a shortcut of a website onto your home screen, if it’s a PWA site, Chrome will create a TWA app for that site and put that on your home screen.

That’s what the Chrome-dependent Jtech Forums app That @TripleU posted earlier in this thread is from.

There’s no way to have Chrome generate a TWA that can’t open offsite links, but there are other tools that can do that. The only GUI PWA to TWA converter that I could find requires you to upload verification that you own the site that you’re trying to convert to a TWA app. There are a bunch of CLI PWA to TWA tools, most of them generate Android Studio projects.
If anyone wants to give these tools a try, or if @flipadmin wants to use Appmaker.xyz’s GUI PWA to TWA converter, then we’ll be able to have a Jtech Forums app that won’t open offsite links that will be dependent on my Koshered Chrome.

@FlipAdmin

JTech Forums.apk (2.8 MB)

@kosherboy

@Dev-in-the-BM Does it make sense that @FlipAdmin used Appmaker.xyz’s GUI PWA to TWA converter and it’s still opening in my WebView and not with your chrome.

@kosherboy

It’s weird cause @FlipAdmin told me on his Samsung tablet it uses chrome.

@Dev-in-the-BM

I don’t know, I have the same problem.
What version of chrome does @FlipAdmin use?
What version are you using?
Does anyone else have chrome to try it out?

Basically, some people including @FlipAdmin made a TWA with a tool, didn’t put too much into it, it works for some phones and doesn’t work for others.
No one did anything for it after that besides for making an updated one when the forum changed addresses.
If anyone who knows Android Studio/Java/Kotlin wants to try to revive this app, we can get logs of whats going on on the phones when the PWA app opens with System WebView instead of Chrome, and try to figure out why its happening and how to fix it.

[mufandchush]

With this new update to jtech forums besides for the other bugs on the website now your app that opens up to the forums no more works. The first page loads but if I click on anything it says ssl error.

[anonymousfliphones]

i coulnt get it to install on my tcl

[kosherboy]

Here you go:

JTech Forums Webview Version (@kosherboy) V 1.1.apk (7.1 MB)

Made with median.co.

I set that links not within the forum domain should open in an external browser which should take care of any IAB’s (let me know if otherwise).

What’s new:

1. Opens supported links, which means if you click on a link that starts with https://forums.jtechforums.org/ it will open up in this app.
2. You can long tap on a hyperlink and copy it.
3. Switched the download directory from “apps internal cache folder” to “system downloads folder”.

[mufandchush]

Great job!

What works

• Kosher
• downloads
• uploads trying right now