You are currently viewing Adding Service Workers In Generated Event Websites In Open Event Webapp

Adding Service Workers In Generated Event Websites In Open Event Webapp

var urlsToCache = [
 './css/bootstrap.min.css',
 './offline.html',
 './images/avatar.png'
];
self.addEventListener('install', function(event) {
 event.waitUntil(
   caches.open(CACHE_NAME).then(function(cache) {
     return cache.addAll(urlsToCache);
   })
 );
});

All the other assets are cached lazily. Only when they are requested, we fetch them from the network and store it in the local store. This way, we avoid caching a large number of assets at the install step. Caching of several files in the install step is not recommended since if any of the listed files fails to download and cache, then the service worker won’t be installed!

self.addEventListener('fetch', function(event) {
event.respondWith(caches.match(event.request).then(function(response) {
     // Cache hit - return response
     if (response) { return response; }
     // Fetch resource from internet and put into cache
     var fetchRequest = event.request.clone();
     return fetch(fetchRequest).then(function(response) {
         var responseToCache = response.clone();
         caches.open(CACHE_NAME).then(function(cache) {
           cache.put(event.request, responseToCache);
         });
         return response;
       }).catch(function(err) {
         // Return fallback page when user is offline and resource is not cached
         if (event.request.headers.get('Accept').indexOf('text/html') !== -1) {
           return caches.match('./offline.html');
         }
       });
   })
 );
});

One thing which we need to keep in mind is that the website content should not become stale. Because it might happen that the website is updated but the actual content shown is older since response to every request is being fetched from the outdated cache. We need to delete the old cache and install a new service worker when the content of the site is updated. To deal with this issue, we calculate the hash of event website folder after the site has been generated. This value of the hash is used as the cache name inside which we keep the cached resources. When the content of the event website changes, the value of the hash changes. Due to this, a new service worker (containing the new value of the hash) is installed. After the currently open pages of the website are closed, the old service worker is killed and the activate event of the new service worker is fired. During this activate event, we clear the old cache containing the outdated content!  

// Hash of the event website Folder
var CACHE_NAME = 'Mtj5WiGtMtzesubewqMtdGS9wYI=';
self.addEventListener('activate', function(event) {
 event.waitUntil(caches.keys().then(function(cacheNames) {
   return Promise.all(cacheNames.map(function(cacheName) {
     if (cacheName !== CACHE_NAME) {
       console.log('Deleting cache ' + cacheName);
       return caches.delete(cacheName);
     }
   })
   );
 }));
});

Here are many screenshots showing service workers in action

  • When the site is updated, the outdated cache contents are cleared

29312352-87f9e8da-81d2-11e7-9f05-02a557a820da.png

  • On visiting a page which has not yet been cached, its contents are placed into cache for utilization on future visits

29312487-2155e70e-81d3-11e7-85c1-004c4a475e82.png

  • On visiting the cached page again, the assets will be served from the cache directly.

29312349-87f6c222-81d2-11e7-8fb4-c54feb175ed9.png

  • The page will comfortably load even on offline connections

29312351-87f8eec6-81d2-11e7-985a-7f1ba2dba482.png

  • On requesting for a page which has not yet been cached, we show a custom fallback page which shows a message

29312350-87f821c6-81d2-11e7-90e7-30f6467b2988.pngReferences:

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