What is Bolt Web?

Bolt Web, sometimes referred to as Bolt Reader, is a web app version of your native iOS and Android Pugpig apps. It has the same navigation elements as the native apps, adjusted slightly to account for standard website behaviour, such as the tab bar at the top of the page, rather than the bottom. 

The web platform is only accessible via third party authentication, if your content is paid. However we do present buttons on the sign in modal that can redirect users to the relevant stores, which is useful if they're accessing the web platform on a mobile device.

We also support a method to share login details with your existing website so your users don't have to sign in twice.

How does Bolt Web fit into your plans?

When you first start working with us, your Customer Success Manager should speak to you about how you intend to use Bolt Web and give you any pointers if you're not sure. This helps us identify which of the below options might apply to you and helps you get the best out of the platform.

Syncing login between your Website and Bolt Web

If you want to establish a link to your Bolt Web instance, you can do so using a standard anchor tag. However, maintaining the login status across domains requires additional effort. One effective method involves dropping a cross-domain cookie that is accessible to all subdomains (this cookie should be ` httpOnly`, `SameSite` and `Secure`), as mentioned in the documentation available at: https://docs.pugpig.com/auto-login-specification-for-pugpig-bolt-web-reader. 

If your website is already creating a token then all the better and Pugpig should be informed of the name of this cookie. By doing so, we can assess the viability of utilising the token associated with that cookie for the implementation of the PKCE login flow within Bolt Web. This should ensure a seamless and secure login experience across your platforms.

Bolt Web will employ the cookie for the login process. If the cookie does not exist, the sign-in buttons will redirect users to the configured login page in Bolt Web, such as the PKCE login page. For consistency this should match the page used on the website. This flow will remain consistent even after an unsuccessful renewal. Following the renew flow, Bolt Web will refrain from attempting to drop any additional cookies.

Any login and logout functionality is scoped to the Bolt Web instance and we don't delete cookies (we only remove localStorage). As such, if the logout functionality is used within the context of the Bolt Web reader the user would be re-authenticated on page reload as the site cookie still exists.

Editions and embedding

Bolt Web is particularly useful if you have edition-based content and don't currently have a place to present those editions to your users. We even have a way for you to embed the web app in your existing site if you'd like to do so, in which case the above section regarding syncing login is particularly relevant.

Timelines and indexing & visibility options

Most if not all of our customers already have a content-hosting website, so if your content is mainly timelines it's very likely that you don't want the Bolt web app to be publicly available, or indexed by search engines, as this would result in duplicated content and poor SEO. By default, indexing and public visibility is turned off.

Previewing content

Regardless of whether you'd like to use Bolt Web as a user-facing platform, it is very useful as a preview tool for timeline or content styling and changes and can be accessed via your app domain. 

Bolt Web features

In general we try to maintain parity with the native platforms on our web platform, however this isn't always feasible and you may notice that some iOS and Android features haven't quite made their way to Web yet, such as the Audio player. This can be for many reasons but is most often due to a combination of effort, demand and available resource. In the case of the audio player we have a reasonable alternative in the standard HTML5 player, which still provides an intuitive way for users to listen to audio, so we are waiting until we have a bit more time to build our own.

As always our roadmap is quite flexible and subject to change, so if there's a particularly feature you think is missing or would like to see, please let us know.