Pinning a Pega Application to iOS device Home Screen & Navigation
Our business has developed an application using Pega 7.2 that has been configured for use on both desktop and mobile devices. For our mobile users, they can access our application by opening up a safari browsing window on their device, navigating to our application url, and from there they have the option to pin the website to their home screen (if using safari internet browser, see screenshot 1). After being pinned (screenshot 2), this webpage looks and behaves like an application rather than a safari window in that there is no visible URL at the top of their screen or bottom toolbar with backward/forward navigation buttons etc (screenshot 3). One of the issues we are facing deals with navigation. When a user pins our application to the home screen, let's say they log in and they then decide to open up a pdf file in our application. This pdf file opens in the same window as the application, and from there the user is unable to navigate back to our application. The only option for the user is to reopen our application, log in, and repeat the process.
Our business has developed an application using Pega 7.2 that has been configured for use on both desktop and mobile devices. For our mobile users, they can access our application by opening up a safari browsing window on their device, navigating to our application url, and from there they have the option to pin the website to their home screen (if using safari internet browser, see screenshot 1). After being pinned (screenshot 2), this webpage looks and behaves like an application rather than a safari window in that there is no visible URL at the top of their screen or bottom toolbar with backward/forward navigation buttons etc (screenshot 3). One of the issues we are facing deals with navigation. When a user pins our application to the home screen, let's say they log in and they then decide to open up a pdf file in our application. This pdf file opens in the same window as the application, and from there the user is unable to navigate back to our application. The only option for the user is to reopen our application, log in, and repeat the process.
I've done some research through apple's developer support portal and found that this is due to something called standalone mode being enabled via a meta tag added to Pega's HTML code. When standalone mode is enabled, it hides the URL along the top as well as the toolbar that runs across the bottom of the screen. My question is, is there a way to disable standalone mode by modifying this meta tag? If so, where can I find Pega's HTML code to modify this meta tag? Has anyone experienced anything similar with their application?
***Edited by Moderator Marissa to update categories***
Accepted Solution
Pegasystems Inc.
US
Hi Brennen,
I cannot recall anyone attempting what you are doing recently, and my first recommendation is to use the Pega Mobile Client to wrap your application as it has this behavior built in.
That said, there is an HTML rule pyMetaTags that is an available extension with the <meta> tags being injected inside a <pega:when> tag for for mobile devices. You can try adjusting this rule to see if you get the behavior that you are going for, but as I said, I am not sure if anyone has done this before or not.
I hope this helps!
- James
Infosys
US
Hi James,
Thanks for your help! I was able to modify the pyMetaTags HTML rule to get the desired behavior needed for our application. Consider this issue resolved.
Thanks,
Brennen