How do you make web pages behave like native apps on mobile devices?

It is more advisable to focus on a Mobile-first development approach. This ensures that responsive design is more easily prioritized, Also, consider creating a Progressive Web App (PWA), and implement native-like navigation.

Build a responsive web app with the mobile-first approach. This makes your app adaptable across various mobile screens. Also, embrace PWA(Progressive Web Application). With this, a user can install the web app as a mobile on their home screen and launch it anytime they want without visiting the web address on the browser.

Les PWA sont des applications web qui fournissent une expérience utilisateur similaire à celle des applications natives. Elles peuvent être installées sur l'écran d'accueil des utilisateurs, fonctionner hors ligne, et envoyer des notifications. Assurez vous que votre site web est compatible avec les PWA en ajoutant un manifeste web et un service worker.

Bootstrap is an effective library to install for responsive design. Your website can then be adapted to a multi-column grid system, just by adding in certain classes to your existing tags. Bootstrap will then adjust the width to screen size, and can even hide a navigation bar into an icon for smaller screen sizes.

Although we have a number of CSS responsive libraries that help with the responsive layout, I would highly recommend going all in with basic CSS+HTML especially if you are a newbie. Get an idea of how media queries work, how mobile first development works. It will help you understand what is happening behind the scenes of those responsive libraries but most importantly it will push you to write better responsive HTML. I'm highly against using a complete library just because you want to use only it's grid system. You can make your own basic usable grid system under 50 lines of code that will be enough for any website. I don't see a reason why we should add thousands of lines of code to a website if we have a better solution.

We will need service worker api to make the app look native to user : - With using service workers, we save configured files in cache and service worker will take care of resource flow. - it can respond to network requests before it gets to the network, actually it acts like proxy server. - with registered service worker, the configured files will be loaded statically from the user browser cache. - it has different strategies to load resources. Stale-while-revalidate Cache first, then Network Network first, then Cache Cache only Network only

Just as important as backward compatibility in YOUR code is browser support of new CSS initiatives and standards. Having cross browser support of @container queries is huge, and the more we can do in CSS and the less in JavaScript the better. I'm very excited about where CSS is heading!

Meta tags and manifest files can make your mobile web app behave more like a native app, with the most powerful feature being "Add to Home Screen." This function lets users bookmark the app on their home screen, opening it in a full-screen mode without the browser's URL bar, giving it a native app feel. However, there are drawbacks: you have limited access to native device features like the camera or geolocation. Additionally, "Add to Home Screen" only works in the device's default browser (e.g., Safari for iOS), so users of other browsers must switch to access this feature.

To achieve native app-like behavior on mobile devices, Bootstrap, a powerful front-end framework, offers a robust solution. By leveraging Bootstrap's responsive design components and grid system, you can create layouts that adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes. Utilizing Bootstrap's mobile-friendly navigation, modals, and form controls further enhances the user experience. Additionally, incorporating Bootstrap's JavaScript plugins for interactive elements contributes to a polished and app-like feel on mobile devices.

It's important to consider why you want your web app to feel like a "native" one at all. Native to what? Are you using "native" as a proxy for some other factor that's important to you, your users or your business? Do you really mean you want it perceived as fast? Or do you mean you can add it to the home page of your phone? Or do you want it to work without a network connection? Full screen? Run 3D rendering? Those features have all been available on web pages for a while now, but understanding why you want a "native" feel will help you focus in on what's really important. What need is driving this?

When building your app, it's essential to decide whether you need a web app with a native feel or a fully native app. Starting with a web app can be an efficient way to reach your MVP, offering broad compatibility across all mobile devices with a single platform. However, if your app relies on device-specific hardware features like the gyroscope or camera, a native app might be necessary from the start.