I have an HTML application that run offline, and I want to end up with a way to open the app from an exe file on Windows. I have tried Visual Studio, but the app does not run in the WebBrowser component.
I am pretty sure I have read that I can use Chrome (or some kind of Chrome version of Chrome) as a "bundled runtime", but I have a really hard time finding anything about it. Does it exist?
Using chrome as an engine (instead of "web views" based on Internet Explorer) would also make sure that the application would run nice on computers which has not updated Windows or browsers for a while.
You must be thinking of CEF: the Chromium Embedded Framework.
I've HTML application build with AngularJS/jQuery/Bootstrap with AJAX REST API.
Is it possible to create executable/installer for Windows operating system?
Without any 3rd-party software, it should look like native application, but HTML.
For example, Slack messenger has web/mac/windows versions and they look same.
Any ideas?
// UPD
I probably need a wrapper (webview), but I need all features for EcmaScript5/CSS3.
Electron is the easiest way:
1. Install electron
2. Create and edit main.js:
const electron = require('electron');
const { app, BrowserWindow } = electron;
let mainWindow;
app.on('ready', () => {
mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
width: 1000,
height: 700
});
mainWindow.setTitle('title of the desktop app');
mainWindow.loadURL('http://www.yourwebpage.com');
mainWindow.on('closed', () => {
mainWindow = null;
});
});
3. Execute desktop app:
electron main.js
And to build the app, use a builder such as electron-builder.
Hope that helps you!
(Full disclosure, I'm the founder of ToDesktop, I'll try to be objective and unbiased here.)
As usual in Computer Science, the answer is "it depends"!
The first question that you should ask yourself is: Who is the desktop app being used by? Just you? Or, are you distributing the app to customers? Because these two segments have very different needs.
Just you
There are a lot of options here (in no particular order):
Nativefier — The obvious option. Lots of configuration options, lots of contributors, open source and regularly updated. This should probably be the default option if you want to whip up an app just for yourself.
WebDGap — This is a lovely project but it is a little old and "as of April 13th, 2018 WebDGap is no longer an active project.". It should also be noted that this is built on an old version of node-webkit and not Electron.
Web2Desk — Great option if you don't want to mess around with the command-line. It uses Nativefier under-the-hood. It is free with a splash screen or $19 with the splash screen removed.
Do-it-yourself with Electron — The basics were covered quite well in this earlier answer. I like this option because it gives you complete flexibility to take the project wherever you like and you'll learn a bit of Electron too.
Fluid App — This is Mac only but otherwise it's a lovely solution and super easy. It's free for the standard version, there is also a $5 version which includes features like fullscreen.
Flotato — Mac only again but this is a really interesting approach. Simply clone the app and give it a name like docs.google.com, it will then turn into Google Docs. At the time of writing this, it's in pre-release (not released yet) but I'll be watching this closely, it's very cool.
ToDesktop — ToDesktop will work but it's probably a bit overkill if you're creating a personal app. Also, it's probably a bit too expensive for this use-case. ToDesktop is targeted at creating a desktop app for distribution to customers (more about that below).
Distributing to customers
There are a few extra considerations which become more important when creating a desktop app for distribution to your customers:
Installer — Mac users expect a "drag to applications" DMG file. Windows users expect an installer and they also expect to be able to uninstall it from the control panel.
Code Signing — If your app isn't code signed then by default Windows Authenticode and Apple Gatekeeper will prevent your desktop app from being opened.
Auto-update — There is still a web browser running "underneath" your desktop app, it's important to keep this updated for two reasons. 1. Security issues + vulnerabilities should be patched over time. 2. You don't want to be stuck supporting an old web browser in 5 years time because your desktop app's browser hasn't been updated
The tools mentioned above don't offer these features, so they're not really suitable for the use-case of distributing your app to customers. These are the features that we wanted to add when building ToDesktop, so I think it fits this use-case quite nicely. We're adding features all the time, last week we added support for App Protocols and Deeplinks.
I myself was looking for an all around solution for awhile. I tried everything from TideSDK, AppJS, Appcelerator Titanium, native code in VB.NET, XCode, Python, C++, Electron, node-webkit, etc: Basically you name it I've tried it.
Note Electron is nice, but it only runs on 64bit processors. So node-webkit is good if you want to run your app on 32bit processors.
So I decided to build my own open source solution called WebDGap.
Currently WebDGap runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Google Chrome and as a web application!
Watch the How To Video to learn, well how to use the app obviously.
Here's a screenshot.
Being that you're a Mac user already you can merge your exported app into 1 .app mac file. This can be done with Automator (and a little shell scripting).
There's also a coding playground I made for mobile users that has this feature built in called kodeWeave.
Here's a Tic-Tac-Toe game I'm going to export as a Mac App:
Now the web app is running as a native Mac application!
The most easiest and quickest way i know is to use nodejs/npm’s nativefier library which underlying electronjs . It will just take 5 min to create executable for windows. Even a person who do not have programming experience can create desktop application from web application. Below mentioned post has described the steps to convert web application to desktop application. Must read !
Convert any web application to desktop application in 2 min using npm’s nativefier
There are a ton of frameworks out there that can wrap your web app into a native application that can access things like the file storage API for an operating system. This is the specific guide for Windows.
BEWARE THOUGH - you will need to spend time doing solid testing and QA work for your native app so it doesn't feel like a website inside a native wrapper, as well as integrates well with all versions of the OS you want to be compatible with. Tweetdeck for Mac is an example of what not to do - basically a web browser in a native wrapper).
Use Web2Desk: If you are looking for Free and Simple solution.
wherein all you need to do is enter the URL of the web app (or website) and Desktop app for Mac, Windows, and Linux is generated in no time.
With a bit of wrapper code you could package it as a Chrome App. They do not need to run in a browser window but have all the capabilities of a web app, standalone.
https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps
Best Way to Convert Web to Exe is using nativefier:
nativefier --name "Inventory Management System" "http://localhost/php_stock_zip/php_stock_zip/php_stock/" -i ./icon.png -p windows
Steps:
Press Win+x
Press C
Type
nativefier
Installation Requirements
* macOS 10.9+ / Windows / Linux
* Node.js >=6 (4.x may work but is no longer tested, please upgrade)
See optional dependencies for more
Step 5: npm install nativefier -g
Finally type nativefier "Web Link"
I was trying to download Monodevelop for mac, but on the official page there is everything but a compiled and downloadable file.
I've read around other threads on different forum and apparently it is required to compile the source code. Is this really the case?
What other alternative may exist for Mac? I just need to dig into some source code, using references and jumping from code portion to others without using the search filter.
Thanks.
If you want a binary for Mac, you need to go to Xamarin's homepage and simply download Xamarin Studio.
Xamarin Studio is basically the same thing as MonoDevelop, the only difference is a bit of branding and the inclusion of 3 plugins for their proprietary development offerings, which you can ignore if you're not interested in developing for the mobile platform.
Is it possible to have HTML5 files stored inside the .apk file of an android app and run the files on the android app without requiring internet connectivity?
Yes. If your a native Android programmer look at the WebView. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView.html
If your not, you could look at things like http://cordova.apache.org/ and http://www.appcelerator.com/platform/titanium-sdk/ and others. But honestly I've never meet a dev who has a good thing to say about these for any kind of complex app.
i need to package my plugin into an installer so that it can install on all available browsers on the computer.
After browsing many topics, i found a couple of script to single install Chrome or FF script with NSIS that helped a lot, but i really need a full NSIS script that will be able to install the extension for all browsers in a single install.
I'm sure this has been built many times over and if anybody could share a script example i could tweak to my needs, it would be greatly appreciated as i could only find bits and pieces and would like to see how the big picture fits together.
My requirements are quite simple :
got the files in XPi, CRX.. extension file format
I need a windows installer (NSIS) to install the extension for each available scripts
if it could feed from a server, that would be a plus, but not mendatory
I use Kango framework, so using another solution is not an option for now
Thanks a lot for your help !
UPDATE : I'm still trying to figure it out and can't find much support, keep in mind i cannot use CROSSRider. Please help thanks a lot
No need to reinvent the wheel there. I think you're looking for something like crossrider.com, it's a cross-browser extension platform. Take a look specifically at the "Windows Installer" option on your app settings there - You can choose to bundle your extension with your installation.