Service Worker | How to create custom offline page ?

Service Workers allow to intercept the network requests and decide what to load (fetch). This feature can be used to load a custom cached offline page when the users lose connectivity, which can improve their browsing experience.

Understanding the application life-cycle

When the user initially loads the page, the Service Worker gets installed and activated. Then the custom offline page gets stored to the browser cache.
When the user triggers event which causes reload or navigation to another page but in the same time he is no longer connected to the internet, the service worker intercepts the network request and returns the offline cached page as a response.

Starting files

Consider that ‘index.html‘ and ‘style.css‘ are in the same folder for more simplicity.

index.html

<!-- index.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html> 

<html lang="en"> 

<head> 

    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 

    <meta name="viewport" 

          content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> 

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge" /> 

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="./style.css" /> 

    <title>Service Worker App</title> 

</head> 

<body> 

    <!-- Button causing page reload -->

    <div class="wrapper"> 

        <!-- GfG logo -->

        <img src= 

"https://media.geeksforgeeks.org/wp-content/uploads/geeksforgeeks-6.png" 

             alt="GfG logo" /> 

        <button type="button" 

                onClick="window.location.reload();"> 

            Refresh Page 

        </button> 

    </div> 

</body> 

</html>

stylew.css

/*   style.css   */

* { 

    margin: 0; 

    padding: 0; 
} 

*, 
*::before, 
*::after { 

    box-sizing: inherit; 
} 

html { 

    box-sizing: border-box; 

    font-size: 62.5%; 
} 

.wrapper { 

    display: flex; 

    flex-direction: column; 

    justify-content: center; 

    align-items: center; 

    height: 80vh; 
} 

button { 

    padding: .5rem; 

    font-size: 1.5rem; 
}

Output:

Default behaviour when the user lose connectivity:

Default page behaviour when connection is lost

Adding the service worker:

Consider that ‘index.html‘, ‘style.css‘, ‘service-worker.js‘ and ‘offline-page.html‘ are in the same folder for more simplicity.

index.html

<!-- index.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html> 

<html lang="en"> 

<head> 

    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 

    <meta name="viewport"

          content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> 

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" 

          content="ie=edge" /> 

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="./style.css" /> 

    <title>Service Worker App</title> 

</head> 

<body> 

    <div class="wrapper"> 

        <img src= 
"https://media.geeksforgeeks.org/wp-content/uploads/geeksforgeeks-6.png"

             alt="GfG logo" /> 

        <!-- Button causing page reload -->

        <button type="button" 

                onClick="window.location.reload();"> 

            Refresh Page 

        </button> 

    </div> 

    <script> 

        // Check if browser supports service workers 

        if (navigator.serviceWorker) { 

            console.log("Service Worker Supported"); 

            // Start registration process on page load 

            window.addEventListener("load", () => { 

                navigator.serviceWorker 

                    // The register function takes as argument 

                    // the file path to the worker's file 

                    .register("./service_worker.js") 

                    // Gives us registration object 

                    .then(reg => console.log("Service Worker Registered")) 

                    .catch(swErr => console.log( 

                      `Service Worker Error: ${swErr}}`)); 

            }); 

        } 

    </script> 

</body> 

</html>

style.css

/*   style.css   */

* { 

    margin: 0; 

    padding: 0; 
} 

*, 
*::before, 
*::after { 

    box-sizing: inherit; 
} 

html { 

    box-sizing: border-box; 

    font-size: 62.5%; 
} 

.wrapper { 

    display: flex; 

    flex-direction: column; 

    justify-content: center; 

    align-items: center; 

    height: 80vh; 
} 

button { 

    padding: .5rem; 

    font-size: 1.5rem; 
}

service_worker.js

/*  service_worker.js  */

const offlineCache = './offline-page.html'; 
// Adding the offline page  
// when installing the service worker 

self.addEventListener('install', e => { 

    // Wait until promise is finished  

    // Until it get rid of the service worker 

    e.waitUntil( 

        caches.open(offlineCache) 

        .then(cache => { 

            cache.add(offlineCache) 

                // When everything is set 

                .then(() => self.skipWaiting()) 

        }) 

    ); 
}) 

// Call Activate Event 

self.addEventListener('activate', e => { 

    console.log('Service Worker - Activated') 

    e.waitUntil( 

        caches.keys().then(cacheNames => { 

            return Promise.all( 

                cacheNames.map( 

                    cache => { 

                        if (cache !== offlineCache) { 

                            console.log( 

                              'Service Worker: Clearing Old Cache'); 

                            return caches.delete(cache); 

                        } 

                    } 

                ) 

            ) 

        }) 

    ); 

}); 

// Call Fetch Event  

self.addEventListener('fetch', e => { 

    console.log('Service Worker: Fetching'); 

    e.respondWith( 

        // If there is no internet 

        fetch(e.request).catch((error) => 

            caches.match(offlineCache) 

        ) 

    ); 
});

offline-page.html

<!-- offline-page.html-->
<!DOCTYPE html> 

<html lang="en"> 

<head> 

    <meta charset="UTF-8" /> 

    <meta name="viewport" 

          content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> 

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" 

          content="ie=edge" /> 

    <title>Custom Offline Page</title> 

    <style> 

        .wrapper { 

            display: flex; 

            flex-direction: column; 

            justify-content: center; 

            align-items: center; 

            height: 80vh; 

        } 

    </style> 

</head> 

<body> 

    <div class="wrapper"> 

        <h1>Ooops, it looks like you lost connection.</h1> 

        <h2>Please check your network and try again!</h2> 

        <h3>Sincerely, GeeksForGeeks team!</h3> 

    </div> 

</body> 

</html>

Losing connection reload behaviour after adding the Service Worker:

Page behaviour with service worker example code

How to recreate losing a connection

Almost every browser ships with built-in Developer Tools. In most of them, the shortcut to open the tools is F12 or by right clicking on the web page and selecting inspect element. Then, you can go Network and change the box ‘Online’ to ‘Offline’ and refresh your page.

Google Chrome’s developer tools

Article Tags :

JavaScript

Web Technologies