Need some advice. I've created several apps in Wappler (php and nodejs) but all have been meant to be used in a desktop browser. Now I have a new web app that kind of needs a mobile component. The web app's primary function is for admins to review and process photos. Photos need to be submitted by non-admin users from mobile phones/tablets. These users will sign in using a different database. Photos that are uploaded by these users will go to the web app database and S3 for processing. So, the mobile user would login and have a form that would access their phone photos and then a list of tags to describe the photos and a submit button. Nothing fancy. But as you all know mobile can be complicated! I looked at Adalo and am still considering it, but its really limited when connecting to outside APIs and can get expensive.
So the big question is do I need to create iOS and Android apps or just a mobile version of some web app? I like the idea of the mobile user having an icon on their mobile device to access the app. This needs to install easily, these users are NOT technical at all.
For such a limited user base I would go the Progressive Web App route. Easily installed and acts and looks just like any other native app without having to go through the web stores. And a lot easier to build and maintain.
What I don't know about, and this may force you to go the native app route, is the access to the phone's photos.
The mobile development has another learning curve.
It's not enough to know about using Wappler, but have some notions about java versions, gradle versions which can be a really painful sometimes, and of course you'll need some javascript to enable some capacitor plugins (For example, control the backbutton, or storing cookies to maintain the user logged, etc)
But it's really nice having working, and there's nothing special to be learned for that, anyone can do it
For as much I love the native-look (btw, an app made with capacitor is not 100% native) maybe the fastest solution for you is like brad says, a PWA.
I think @ben has covered some things about that and explained very well in some videos.
You can do that also with PWA and the install it's pretty simple.
Anyway, you can do it on both ways, if you need some advice on going with capacitor and do it on "native" way, you can leave here some questions!
I just tested with one of my web apps, the mobile photos is available in a PWA. That is definitely the route I would go unless you expect thousands of users. AS @TMR says, this is very easily done as a PWA.
If you aren't familiar with PWAs, they can install a button on the nome screen just like a native app. But it doesn't really install anything on the user's device. So it's perfect for non technical users.
We have tens of thousands of users but the advantage of PWA is it allows the absolute maximum amount of users to use the application. Its platform agnostic so results by default in being used by way more people in my experience. The only way I'd deploy to a specific mobile platform now would be if it was an app that had to interface with hardware (lighting systems, monitoring industrial process etc) or if it had a user base in the millions.
Wappler is the only tool I've seen that can offer all options in one package.
Sorry for not responding, was on holiday, but now back at it.
Since a PWA sounds like the right option, I thought that PWAs are usually static, no PHP or Nodejs files. Just HTML files. So, is that the case? I need the PWA to open to a login page then validate the user and show them a screen to manage there account info, make a payment, and upload photos (which will happen most of the time). I know how to do this in PHP and Node in a traditional web browser, but that all seems dynamic. Am I missing something?
In the meantime, I've started creating a new test project to see what works, but while I'm doing that I thought I would just ask the experts.
Your PWA can be any technology ... PHP, Node .... whatever you like. Native mobile apps are just HTML pages with a PHP or Node backend API.
But your PWA can be any technology that you are comfortable with. Thats what makes it so popular now. Unless you need an actual device specific functionality such as a camera, the PWA route is becoming much more popular.
Any web app that is mobile friendly can be converted to a PWA.
