I'm developing a progressive web application (PWA) that will eventually send notifications to users.
I already know I'm able to send push notifications (like any regular app), as explained in the following blog post: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/getting-started/codelabs/push-notifications/?hl=en-us.
I also know that I can add a PWA to the home screen, by creating a simple manifest file (https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2014/11/Support-for-installable-web-apps-with-webapp-manifest-in-chrome-38-for-Android).
However, after having the app in home screen, I would like to add a "hint" to users, letting they know that they have to access the application. A great way to do that is doing something like a "badge notification" (as showed in Facebook icon on the image below).
Is it possible to add this kind of behavior using progressive web applications?
Update - December, 15th, 2018
Google recently launched a post explaining about the so called "Badging for App Icons", which is pretty exciting:
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/12/badging-api
Update - September, 28th, 2018
Relevant Links:- https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=719176&desc=2
- https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=685159
- https://github.com/mgiuca/badging/blob/master/explainer.md
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AmX53h-gk8wN7LPMi_Mq7fsIMgsMKRD6zKa1Ymxxvvc/edit#
As Josh Lee pointed out in Is there a way to add badge notifications using progressive web apps (PWA)?, there are some discussions about the subject on the chromium team.
Looking at the discussion:
FYI, the notification indicators are being pushed to M-71.
and
Thanks for the heads up. That's fine for us because while we hope to have this testable behind a flag in M70, there's no way we'll be launching the API before (at least) M71.
So, maybe, at least for now, it seems that it's not possible to add badge notifications for PWAs, but maybe in the future we'll be able to do that.