Create desktop version.

[gskinner]

Create desktop version.

[josser]

@JnBrymn If you interesting, and you are on a Mac, you can try this version built using node-webkit:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p1ci1c2hhf9rube/RegExr%200.0.1.app.zip but be aware, there is no network abilities at all. (community, sharing, save)

This is my first try wrapping applications into NW.
I spent only 20 minutes to make it, so it may not work at all or work with bugs.

You have been warned :D
Sorry for my bad english.

[gskinner]

This is definitely on our list. It is a little more work than it seems:

1. we need to find an appropriate desktop wrapper (this may still be AIR)
2. we need to do some work to support saving favourites locally, and working through the different interactions when using save/share while offline.

[JnBrymn]

man oh man how can I upvote this? I use regexr at least 5 times a week. Though sometime I can't because I have sensitive information that I can't send to a foreign server.

[gskinner]

The best ways to upvote are:

1. helping with the feature. For example, do some research and provide some input on what you think the best wrapper would be. Better yet, branch the source and try getting it working with the wrapper you chose.
2. Providing feedback. If you have ideas on how to solve some of the UI issues around offline & local saving, that would help accelerate planning.

[tomByrer]

node-webkit seems cool, but I'm wondering if a Chrome Extension might be easier? Though FireFox is my web browser of choice...
If you want a desktop-wrapper mega-list: http://stackoverflow.com/a/13563325/1324588

some of the UI issues around offline & local saving

Can you be more specific please?

[gskinner]

In order to expedite this, I'm considering doing a quick version that does not do any local saving. It would just disable saving when the system is offline. We can then add in local saving as time permits. Thoughts welcome.

[gskinner]

@tomByrer for a desktop version, we would likely want to save favourites to the local file system somewhere, so work can be saved / retrieved even when offline. We'll also want a bit of UI that exposes what's going on, which may be as simple as some alternate error text.

[tomByrer]

I've built a demo project that used form2js to JSONize form data back & forth, then 'saved' it to a <textfield> so I could copy/paste data locally in & out of my app. Should be easy to add, & could be helpful for the online version also.
I could PR this part in for you, but where to put the copy/paste <textfield> could be alot of trial & error, so I'd prefer direction for this.

localForage (Wraps IndexedDB, WebSQL, or localStorage, ez API) is very handy to really save inside the browser.

[seefor]

Please make a desktop version, I use this offline(I fly a lot) and it's the Best RegEx Tool that I recommend to all my customers as well. Thanks again in advance.
-Sif

[Gambloide]

I just cloned this repo this week in hopes of being able to create a Chrome Packaged App fork of this wonderful tool, to be able to use it offline.

After getting grunt build running I however realized that the tool actually relies on the (node?) webserver running underneath even for the regex interpretation/highlighting.

With localForage already mentioned I would also propose having a look at TimerX3 which is a web app built using yeoman, grunt and bower, able to be 'deployed' as both: Firefox OS and Chrome Packaged App. An article with some backgroudnd information on that can be found here.

As I have absolute zero experience with using node and grunt (aside from the little setup for regexr) I don't know yet if I will be able to give more input on possible directions for this issue in the near future.

[gskinner]

All of the logic in RegExr is client side (with the exception of save/share/community, obviously). However, we do use Grunt and Node for the build process (ex. compiling SASS, js minification, etc).

[Gambloide]

Well if I run grunt build (no errors or warnings) and access the tool from localhost:8000 everything works just fine.

However, if I then shut down the webserver and open the index.html file myself the interface loads, but no text is being highlighted whatsoever. That certainly seems like there is at least something preventing the logic from working only client side.

[wdamien]

@Gambloide With almost any javascript project, there is a dependancy for using a web server (even a local one). I bet if you open your console you'll see some security errors that are the result of running the site locally.

[Gambloide]

@wdamien While the "almost" is most likely an exaggeration I certainly understand that there are projects which won't work without a web server. Especially this one, having so much features besides the great Regex interpreter.

As you suspected, the console in fact shows some security errors, including the regExWorker.template.js which cannot be loaded and is, in fact, the crux here.

Though, still, this is not that big a deal, since Node can be run locally using packaged apps and node installers. source1 source2 (I have got to add though, that these are only things I found and do not have any experience with myself, so the challenge could still be greater than I expect it to be.)

[wyvernzora]

@gskinner What do you think about atom-shell? I have worked with it before and it seems that creating a desktop app directly from your website is pretty viable.

http://www.tidesdk.org/

[wdamien]

We have looked into tidesdk, but unfortunately the project has been dead for a while. It looks like the tidesdk team is now focussed on building https://www.tidekit.com/

Yeah it's not really dead, they just abandoned it to make tidekit, because they failed to commercialize tidesdk. Tidesdk works fine, it just uses webkit, whereas tidekit is using chromium embedded framework. I think tidesdk would handle the task of wrapping your website fine. As an alternative, you could always whip something up in C# on mono, using CEF, as the is a .net wrapper. You'd then have a cross platform native application.

Sorry I should correct my last statement: you're right in saying it's dead, in the sense that development has ceased. A halt in development doesn't equate to the project being useless, it what I meant to say.

There is also adobe brackets which could be adapted to be a shell for the application, http://brackets.io. You might even be able to just extend it via plugins, since it's already an editor.

[wdamien]

yes, I did mean dead in the sense that development has stopped. But I'm also thinking towards the future, and it doesn't make sense to use a framework that will never be updated again. Any language or framework could die :) But something that obviously has no future is just not worth the time imho. Especially with so many great alternatives out there.

Well it doesn't really seem that there are too many great alternatives out there, since you have nearly a years worth of community suggestions and requests on this post, and still not even a decision as to where to start with the project. I dunno what you're talking about either, how the end of development for tidesdk means it's not good enough. It's a simple, single page website that does regex. Do you foresee this project ever becoming something that's so complicated, that a roughly current version of webkit wouldn't be sufficient for it? Or is it just that you guys don't know any languages for developing native applications? Even using CEF in C++, it's a handful of lines of code to have this working client side.....

Pardon the frustration, I come along finding a thread with peaked interest in contributing, only to get stone walled. I made multiple suggestions for what could be used (and so did many others), the only response I can get back seems to be **** swinging and debating semantics. So yeah, frustrated, too old for it, when you grow up pissing contests get old. Lost interest, no contribution, cya.

[lannymcnie]

@TechnikEmpire Sorry you felt dismissed. It might not be immediately clear that we have already evaluated several tools for a desktop version, so we have already been through this internally. The need for a version that runs offline has been raised, but only by a tiny percentage of the users, so it is not a high priority.

In the mean time, we aren't anxious to build it with an SDK that might not see any updates to issues we encounter. Please remember that this project is completely free, ad-free, and 100% (so far) built by our team.

That said, if anyone wants to build a version with Tide, or any other desktop wrapper, we would be happy to evaluate, and integrate it into the source here. This is part of why we released it open source. If it is in fact a handful of lines of code, then feel free to take a stab at it yourself, rather than prescribing what our team should focus our efforts on.

Again, appreciate the feedback, and I don't think there was any ill will intended here.
Cheers.

[Dinesh-Ramakrishnan]

+1 for Offline Tool

[mul14]

How about Electron? Have you try it? It used by Slack, Facebook Nuclide, and Microsoft Visual Code.

I just experiment several hours ago https://github.com/mul14/regexr/tree/electron-test

[gskinner]

I think looking at Electron makes a lot of sense. We'll give it a go soon.

[papiveron]

Hi,

Please I clone the repository and installed with npm. But I still can't figure out how to run the regexr desktop version on my computer.

Is it really possible or we can use only the online version? If using the desktop is possible, how to get there. The documentation is not clear about that.

Thank you so much.

Regards.