mchorfa/appjs

SDK on top of nodejs to build desktop apps using HTML5/CSS/JS

AppJS

AppJS is an SDK to develop desktop applications using Node.js melded with Chromium. With AppJS you can develop desktop tools and applications using the same libraries and knowledge used to build websites. You get all the following in one package:

• JS, HTML5, CSS, SVG, WebGL provided by Chromium
• mature http/https servers and client APIs - Node
• filesystem, dns, cryptography, subprocesses, OS APIs - Node
• sandboxed code execution environements virtual machines - Node
• tools for exposing native C++ bindings to JavaScript--APIs for authoring and the tools for compiling - Node

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• Site: appjs.org
• Community: mailing list

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AppJS is under heavy development. Expect many API changes and things to break.

30 Second Quickstart

The below packages include everything needed to get started with AppJS, including Node.js, all dependencies, binaries, and a launcher ready to go out of the box. 1.) Extract to a folder. 2.) Double click on launch. 3.) Hello World.

AppJS 0.0.16 Distributables:

• Linux 32 bit / 64 bit -> app.sh
• Mac -> app.sh
• Windows -> app.exe

One Minute Usage Overview

var app = module.exports = require('appjs');

app.serveFilesFrom('./content');  // serves files to browser requests to "http://appjs/*"

var window = app.createWindow('http://appjs/', {
  width      : 640,
  height     : 460,
  resizable  : false,
  alpha      : true  // alpha composited background (Windows & Mac)
});

window.on('create', function(){
  console.log("Window Created");
});

window.on('ready', function(){
  this.require = require;
  this.process = process;
  this.module = module;
  this.console.open();
  this.console.log('process', process);
  this.frame.center();
  this.frame.show();
  console.log("Window Ready");
});

window.on('close', function(){
  console.log("Window Closed");
});

Shared Contexts

Node Install

Due to the complex dependencies of AppJS, installation via npm is difficult and error prone.

• First you need Node 0.8+ installed.
• Then use npm to install node-gyp: npm install node-gyp.
• Finally, install appjs: npm install appjs.

Currently the binaries require Node for the following architectures:

• Linux - 64 bit
• Mac - 32 bit
• Windows - 32 bit

Platform build requirements:

• Mac OS X: Currently 32bit node only, $ node -e "console.log(process.arch)" -> ia32
• Linux: sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
• Windows: Windows SDK, DirectX SDK, and Visual C++ 2010

License

( The MIT License )

Copyright (c) 2012 Morteza Milani and other AppJS contributors

See the LICENSE file for details.