WebView Community Group Recap: 2024 and Beyond

Hi everyone,

As the year winds down, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate what
we've achieved together in 2024 and share a bit about where we're headed
next year. This year has been full of incredible milestones, and it's
worth reflecting on how far we've come and what we can do next year.

Before we start with a summary and outlook, I have a favor to ask.
Please visit <https://bitpoll.de/poll/webviewcg-25-1/> to help us
determine the best time for the first meeting next year. I thought using
a time poll site like this would be a good way to find a time that works
for most participants. Let’s see how well this approach works.

Note: The poll times are in UTC. If you create an account and set your
timezone, the times will automatically convert to your local time. We
might consider finding a better tool in the future.


What We Accomplished in 2024

caniwebview.com Project

We launched caniwebview.com as a publicly accessible resource to
document how WebViews behave across different platforms. With the
valuable data we get from sources like Open Web Docs, Browser Compat
Data and Baseline caniwebview can help you find out if web APIs are
available for use in WebViews. You can compare WebViews, browsers and
browse the compatibility information in different granularity from web
features down to specific APIs

This initiative is all about helping developers understand and navigate
inconsistencies to create smoother experiences. We’re excited to keep
building on this momentum in the coming year.

WebView Survey

We ran a small survey about WebViews with the help of W3C China. It got
only a few responses, but we can learn from the questions asked on what
works best for the next survey. There are a few ideas for a bigger
survey or even better short surveys to gather interesting data on
WebViews.

Collaborations at TPAC 2024

Our discussions at TPAC this year were a highlight. We tackled major
topics like getting WebViews into the web platform baseline and
brainstorming ways to shift how developers see and work with WebViews.
It was fantastic to see so many engaged participants and collect great
new ideas and inspirations. Moving forward, we plan to strengthen these
collaborations with more focused meetings to drive these efforts toward
tangible outcomes.

What’s Next for 2025

Expanding caniwebview.com

We’ll continue to expand caniwebview.com, incorporating more WebViews
and data. Our goal is to make it easier for developers to navigate the
complex landscape of WebViews and reduce the trial-and-error currently
needed to achieve consistent behavior across platforms. Historically
WebView documentation, bugs and workarounds are spread all over the
internet. I think caniwebview has the potential to become the go-to
place for WebView developers.

 Standardizing Behavioral Data

A new task force will focus on standardizing behavioral data formats. By
creating consistent formats, we hope to make it easier for developers to
contribute data and for tools to present it in a clear and useful way.
This consistency will not only benefit WebView developers but also pave
the way for future standards discussions. This task force is still
forming and will start with discussing specifics and expectations in a
first meeting soon. The goal of this group is to ultimately improve the
issues we discovered.

 Targeted WebView Surveys

As discussed at TPAC we are planning to run small targeted surveys to
measure developer perception for example on MDN. Please stay tuned and
reach out if you want to contribute.

"State of WebViews" Report

We plan to create a report to showcase where WebViews are today and
where they’re headed. This "State of WebViews" report will provide
insights into areas of opportunity for improvement, offering a big-
picture view of the ecosystem.
I'm pretty sure this doesn't cover everything we covered this year, but
thanks for reading. None of this would be possible without the energy
and creativity you bring to this community. I’m excited to see what we
can achieve together in 2025!

The WebView Community Group chairs wish you all a happy holiday season
and a wonderful new year.

Cheers,
Niklas