stuarthillary/chromely

Build HTML Desktop Apps on .NET/.NET Core using native GUI, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS

Chromely

Chromely is a lightweight alternative to Electron.NET, Electron for .NET/.NET Core developers.

Chromely is a .NET/.NET Core HTML5 Chromium desktop framework. It is focused on building apps based on Xilium.CefGlue, CefSharp implementations of embedded Chromium (CEF) without WinForms or WPF. Chromely uses Windows and Linux native GUI API as "thin" chromium hosts. It can be extended to use WinForms or WPF.

With Chromely you can build Single Page Application (SPA) HTML5 desktop apps with or without Node/npm. Building SPA apps using javascript frameworks like Angular, React, Vue or similar is easy. You can use Visual Studio Code or any IDE you are familiar with as long as Chromely knows the entry html file from the compiled/bundled files. For more info please see - Chromely-Apps.

Options of communicating (IPC) with rendering process are via:

1. .NET/Javascript integration (CefSharp) - more info @ Expose .NET class to JavaScript.
2. Generic Message Routing (Xilium.CefGlue) - more info @ Generic Message Routing.
3. Ajax HTTP/XHR (Xilium.CefGlue, CefSharp) - more info @ Custom Scheme Handling.
4. Real-time with Websocket (ws) (Xilium.CefGlue) - more info @ Real-time with Websocket.

Roadmap & Help Wanted

If you like Chromely, please give it a star - it helps!

Have a quick question? Wanna chat? Connect on

Have an app/project/tool using Chromely -please share!

Platforms

Cross-platform - Windows, Linux. Built on CefGlue, CefSharp, NET Standard 2.0, .NET Core 2.0, .NET Framework 4.61 and above.

Platform	CefGlue.Winapi	CefGlue.Gtk	CefSharp.Winapi
Windows(1) 32-bit	net461, netstandard2.0	net461, netstandard2.0	net461
Windows(1) 64-bit	net461, netstandard2.0	---	---
Linux(2) 32-bit	---	netstandard2.0	---
Linux(2) 64-bit	---	netstandard2.0	---
MacOSX(3) 64-bit	---	---	---
Linux ARM(4)	---	netstandard2.0	---

 ⁽¹⁾  Windows 7, Service Pack 1 and newer
 ⁽²⁾  Ubuntu 16.04 and newer
       (Mono currently not working, window resizing not working)
 ⁽³⁾  Work in progress...
 ⁽⁴⁾  i.e. Raspberry Pi 3+
       (manual download of CEF builds for ARM available on http://chromely.org/cefbuilds/index.html)

For more info/documentation, please check Chromely wiki.

Demo Code

Get started with the demos.

Creating a Simple App (Using CefGlue with Winapi host)

For more info see - Getting Started

Notes on Upgrade to CefGlue version 70 and CefSharp version 71 (Chromely v4) - Please see.

class Program
{
   static int Main(string[] args)
   {
      var startUrl = "https://google.com";

      var config = ChromelyConfiguration
                     .Create()
                     .WithHostMode(WindowState.Normal, true)
                     .WithHostTitle("chromely")
                     .WithHostIconFile("chromely.ico")
                     .WithAppArgs(args)
                     .WithHostSize(1000, 600)
                     .WithStartUrl(startUrl);

      using (var window = ChromelyWindow.Create(config))
      {
         return window.Run(args);
      }
  }
}

• CefGlue Usage Readme
• CefSharp Usage Readme

Run Starter Template (Using dotnet core cli). For more info, please see - dotnet cli demo template install

dotnet new -i "Chromely.CefGlue.Win.Template::*"
dotnet new chromelywin 
dotnet restore
dotnet chromelycef.dll download v70 --cpu=x64 --dest="bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1"
dotnet build
dotnet run 

Chromely Demos

For more info on demos - Demos

References

• WinApi - https://github.com/prasannavl/WinApi
• Cef - https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef
• Xilium.CefGlue - https://gitlab.com/xiliumhq/chromiumembedded/cefglue
• CefSharp - https://github.com/cefsharp/CefSharp
• Json Serializer - https://github.com/lbv/litjson
• Caliburn.Light Container - https://github.com/tibel/Caliburn.Light/blob/master/src/Caliburn.Core/IoC/SimpleContainer.cs

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome, via PRs, issues raised, or any other means. To become a dedicated contributor, please contact the Chromely team or raise an issue mentioning your intent.

License

Chromely is MIT licensed. For dependency licenses please see.

Credits

Thanks to JetBrains for the OSS license of Resharper Ultimate.

Improved and optimized using: