How to install the this website as an App

THIS ARTICLE IS CURRENTLY A DRAFT

This site now gives you the opportunity for it to be installed as a WebApp (Apple) or Progressive Web App (PWA) (Google).

For phones and tablets it installs an App (WebApp) on your phone's home screen. On a computer it installs the app into your dock.

The app is a packaged version of the site that makes it work as (like) a regular app. It effectively wraps the site in a separate browser instance and makes it look like you're running a dedicated BlatChat application. As we were developing the site we really liked this feature and I use the site as an app most of the time on my phone.

One of the really neat things this can do is that once you've installed the WebApp it gives your phone/tablet the option to receive "push notifications". You'll see in the Notification Settings (bell icon in the top top menu bar) that there are options to turn on "push notifications".

Push notifications are how you get notifications appear on your phone/tablet when you're not running a dedicated app... for instance getting a Facebook notification on your phone when you're not in the Facebook app. Installing BlatChat as a WebApp and turning on push notifications will allow you to get notified of content you follow even when you're not looking at, or even have the Club site open. Push notifications are in addition to emails and in-site notifications which can all be turned on or off for various different types of notifications in Notification Settings.

To be able to use the Push Notification feature on Apple devices you need to be running the latest version of the operating system. I believe this feature has been available on Android for a while, so you probably don't need the very latest OS to get this to work on Android.

More information about setting up Push Notifications and the WebApp can be found here (this is generic Invision instructions - we're working on specific BlatChat instructions):

https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/content-discovery/push-notifications-device-side-r369/

HOWEVER, as of version 4.7.14 (November 2023) there is currently a bug in the site's core code that means you may get the wrong app icon after you install the WebApp.

It's why we haven't been making a big thing of this feature yet.

Sometimes installing the WebApp on your devices can just put a black icon on your home screen or sometimes it can be the site icon "7" but with a "1" in the bottom right corner of the icon. We have logged a bug report with Invision (the site platform provider) and they say they are working on it. Unfortunately it's not likely to get fixed in the next few weeks.

So we only recommend using the WebApp feature on an "if it works for you that's ok" basis.