Content Index API
Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.
The Content Index API allows developers to register their offline enabled content with the browser.
Concepts and usage
As it stands, offline web content is not easily discoverable by users. Content indexing allows developers to tell the browser about their specific offline content. This allows users to discover and view what is available, whilst giving developers the ability to add and manage this content. Examples could be a news website prefetching the latest articles in the background, or a content streaming app registering downloaded content.
The Content Index API is an extension to service workers, which allows developers to add URLs and metadata of already cached pages, under the scope of the current service worker. The browser can then use these entries to display offline reading to a user. As a developer you can also display these entries within your application.
Indexed entries do not automatically expire. It's good practice to present an interface for clearing out entries, or periodically remove older entries.
Note: The API supports indexing URLs corresponding to HTML documents. A URL for a cached media file, for example, can't be indexed directly. Instead, you need to provide a URL for a page that displays media, and which works offline.
Interfaces
ContentIndex
-
The
ContentIndex
interface provides functionality to register content available offline. ContentIndexEvent
-
The
ContentIndexEvent
interface of theContent Index API
defines the object used to represent thecontentdelete
event.
Service worker additions
The following additions to the ServiceWorker
have been specified in the Content Index API spec to provide an entry point for using content indexing.
ServiceWorkerRegistration.index
Read only-
Returns a reference to the
ContentIndex
interface for indexing cached pages. contentdelete
event Experimental-
An event fired when content is removed by the user agent.
Examples
All the following examples assume a service worker has been registered. For more information see the Service Worker API.
Feature detection and interface access
Here we get a reference to the ServiceWorkerRegistration
, then check for the index
property, which gives us access to the content index interface.
js
// reference registration
const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready;
// feature detection
if ("index" in registration) {
// Content Index API functionality
const contentIndex = registration.index;
}
Adding to the content index
Here we're declaring an item in the correct format and creating an asynchronous function which uses the add()
method to register it with the content index
.
js
// our content
const item = {
id: "post-1",
url: "/posts/amet.html",
title: "Amet consectetur adipisicing",
description:
"Repellat et quia iste possimus ducimus aliquid a aut eaque nostrum.",
icons: [
{
src: "/media/dark.png",
sizes: "128x128",
type: "image/png",
},
],
category: "article",
};
// our asynchronous function to add indexed content
async function registerContent(data) {
const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready;
// feature detect Content Index
if (!registration.index) {
return;
}
// register content
try {
await registration.index.add(data);
} catch (e) {
console.log("Failed to register content: ", e.message);
}
}
Retrieving items within the current index
The below example shows an asynchronous function that retrieves items within the content index and iterates over each entry, building a list for the interface.
js
async function createReadingList() {
// access our service worker registration
const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready;
// get our index entries
const entries = await registration.index.getAll();
// create a containing element
const readingListElem = document.createElement("div");
// test for entries
if (!Array.length) {
// if there are no entries, display a message
const message = document.createElement("p");
message.innerText =
"You currently have no articles saved for offline reading.";
readingListElem.append(message);
} else {
// if entries are present, display in a list of links to the content
const listElem = document.createElement("ul");
for (const entry of entries) {
const listItem = document.createElement("li");
const anchorElem = document.createElement("a");
anchorElem.innerText = entry.title;
anchorElem.setAttribute("href", entry.url);
listElem.append(listItem);
}
readingListElem.append(listElem);
}
}
Unregistering indexed content
Below is an asynchronous function, that removes an item from the content index.
js
async function unregisterContent(article) {
// reference registration
const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready;
// feature detect Content Index
if (!registration.index) return;
// unregister content from index
await registration.index.delete(article.id);
}
All the above methods are available within the scope of the service worker. They are accessible from the WorkerGlobalScope.self
property:
js
// service worker script
self.registration.index.add(item);
self.registration.index.delete(item.id);
const contentIndexItems = self.registration.index.getAll();
The contentdelete event
When an item is removed from the user agent interface, a contentdelete
event is received by the service worker.
js
self.addEventListener("contentdelete", (event) => {
console.log(event.id);
// logs content index id, which can then be used to determine what content to delete from your cache
});
The contentdelete
event is only fired when the deletion happens due to interaction with the browser's built-in user interface. It is not fired when the ContentIndex.delete()
method is called.
Specifications
Specification |
---|
Content Index # content-index |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser