I couldn’t really find a good category to put this in however, after installing many of the desktop versions of websites, I found that Vex Forum should also have a desktop application. To make the forum easier to access, and notifications easier to access. Does anyone support this idea?
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I don’t see why not other than it would take time away from the VEX people that are already working on more important stuff. If it existed, I would use it, but it’s not likely that it will happen.
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yes that would make life so much easier or an app for mobile (idk if there already is one but did not find one in app store.) I fully support the idea of a desktop application for the forums
As I’m sure Barin is about to say, there currently is one, but it’s just a web wrapper
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The VEX Forum is already supported as a mobile progressive web app. And it supports delivering notifications through the browser. There would be literally no point in any further investment in making dedicated “apps” with the current feature set of Discourse.
If you want a desktop “app,” just use a browser that supports notifications and bookmark the site (and/or make a shortcut to open the forum from outside your browser).
I am not sure why Discourse does not support PWA on the desktop. Desktop PWAs have different requirements than mobile PWAs though, so I guess they just didn’t bother.
If you want a mobile “app,” just use a browser that supports progressive web apps and notifications on your mobile platform.
Other web apps need a dedicated “app” for some of their features to work properly. For example, Discord only supports system-wide push-to-talk if you install the desktop “app” because browser security standards prevent web sites from reading keystrokes when they are not in focus. The Discord “app” is actually nothing but a website running in a typical web browser with some relaxed security (specifically, it uses the embedded variant of Chromium, which is simply the open-source version of Chrome).
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I edited the post to add apps to what should be added.
More functions could probably be integrated into a desktop app. Furthurmore there would be a larger screen to use.
Nah, you don’t want to make it too easy to post 
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To make the interface more intutive. I think an app would be more useful since the mobile interface is hard to use.
The concept of a Progressive Web App is meant as an alternative to making a Desktop app.
What Desktop features are you proposing?
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i was tending more on the app, as opposed to the desktop application. The mobile website interface is difficult to work with.
For me, VEXforum on mobile is the same as the desktop version, just with UI features tuned for mobile interfaces.
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You do realize that modifying the web-based mobile interface would be a much easier way of doing exactly what you’re suggesting, right? Especially with modern JavaScript libraries, there’s virtually nothing interface-wise that can’t be done in a modern web browser.
What would be the point of developing and maintaining an app just to have a different interface anyway? Unless you can think of any legitimate features an app could provide that a PWA can’t, choosing to develop and maintain an app would be an utterly confounding decision.
Also, personally, I find the mobile interface quite functional and intuitive. I like that it looks and feels like the desktop interface, just with appropriate tweaks to scale properly for small displays. I almost exclusively visit the VEX Forum from my phone for that reason.
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Yes. For me, someone who almost always is on a phone on the Forums, the only downsides to it being a web app is that I can’t get notifications, and there’s a little annoying chrome notification that I can’t make go away that says that “Vex Forum is using Chrome”. These downsides are very minor, and shouldn’t warrant a change. I am perfectly content with the way that it currently is.
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If you enable Chrome notifications in your operating system settings and enable notifications for the VEX Forum within Chrome, you can enable push notifications in your account preferences > Notifications > Live Notifications.
Modern web apps are perfectly able to deliver notifications via modern web browsers.
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I get Chrome notifications for the forums on my phone
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On newer web browsers on your computer such as Chrome you can install the website as an app. This will make it pop out in a separate window, have a start menu tile, and more, essentially being a desktop app.
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The more important thing here is a Discourse (forum software) update that took effect not too long ago. Desktop browsers have supported PWAs well before Discourse supported desktop PWAs.
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Edge/Edge Chromium has a feature to download a website as an “app” but I haven’t tested it so I don’t know how well that works.
It is literally the same thing as going to the URL. “Progressive web app” is just a fancy name for bookmark that shows up in your app launcher.
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