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How to develop Desktop Apps using HTML/CSS/JavaScript? [closed]
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Recently,I have seen blue Stack using html to make their Installer, Atom Text Editor their app,etc, So I want to know how this is developed.Because I also want to develop app using it.
May be cordova can help you to create windows desktop applications using HTML/Javascript
Please let me know if you have any idea about cordova or not. Because I dont want any downvote for my any of answers.
You could look into nw.js
Its based on node js and can be used for desktop application written in html / css / js.
nw.js (called Node-WebKit before) is a good way to make simple applications, which allows you to use Node.js applications and manipulate the browser's window.
Electron is - I think - a better way because it works as simple as nw.js but permit to make more powerful applications : you can register web protocols, manipulate window in depth, and some things that you can't do with nw.js.
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I wonder if I could build a mobile app using node.js, angular and sequelize and how building mobile apps differs from building web apps? I started recently learning node.js, angular and sequelize..
Thank you!
Mobile apps can be created using HTML5 based technologies. You would not run node.js on a mobile device, you could have a node.js app running on a server that the mobile app can call for data and HTML templates.
Building an app in HTML5 is never going to give you the same performance as a native app like an IOS app in Swift but it can reuse a lot of code and templates between the web app and mobile ports between different OSs.
It is a big topic but short answer is that you can build mobile apps with Angular but node.js will only provide you the server side part of the app.
The essential notion behind these tools is basically to reduce "mobile app" development to "web development," by applying (as much as possible) the exact same techniques to both environments. "The display is furnished by a web-browser, controlled by CSS and JavaScript and so-on."
This is "one way to do it," certainly.
But, as you embark on your learning-curve, you should also know that there are (several) other ways to do it. You should make it a point to explore all of them. (In due time ... in due time ... Rome wasn't built in a day.)
Native Application Development uses a vendor's supplied tools to produce an app that basically runs only on that vendor's hardware. *(Although, you should pay careful attention to Apple's Swift, which certainly seems to me to possibly have "cross-platform intentions."
Cross-Platform Toolkits, such as Haxe and OpenFL, which are both so-called "transpilers." These tools take a common source-language format and compile it into source code for a variety of platforms, which are then fed (if necessary) to a platform-specific compiler tool.
The specific tools that I have cited here are by no means the only such tools now available: this is a rapidly-evolving technology.
there are a lot of ways to develop hybrid mobile apps. If you were familiar with angularjs, IONIC will be a nice choice. Ionic combines AngularJS (JavaScript by the way) with HTML5+CSS and uses Cordova to access native device functions. There are genera 3 steps to develop hybrid mobile apps. Firstly, we develop it just as we develop the web app. Secondly, we need to install the platform dependency( android SDK for android mobile, Xcode for ios or windows phone ) and install build tool such as Apache cordova ( enables software programmers to build applications for mobile devices using CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript instead of relying on platform-specific APIs like those in Android, iOS, or Windows Phone). thirdly, using cordova to build your web app into ios or android mobile app.
However, the use of Web-based technologies leads some Apache Cordova applications to run slower than native applications with similar functionality.
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How can I write an iPhone app entirely in JavaScript without making it just a web app?
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Closed 9 years ago.
I just want to know if we can use JavaScript for creating iPhone apps. And if we can how do we do it? Do I have to become an expert in JavaScript to do that?
Yes.
You can use PhoneGap or Appcelerator.
Yes
You can use PhoneGap which is a wrapper of embedded browser
You should be an expert if you're seriously working on the project.
Yes you can.. No need to be an expert to do that.. Search & explore about Phonegap.. You can develop html css javascript based application & wrap them for any mobile os like iOS, android or windows phone 8 etc.
Best of all, its too easy to learn & use
Here's the place to start from
phonegap home
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First, I'm not interested in doing this professionally. I am a web developer, a coworker of mine recently left for Spotify and said he will be working mostly in JavaScript for the Spotify Desktop app. He said it uses "Chrome frame" and everything inside is done like a web app (HTML/JS/CSS).
As a web developer who never built anything for Desktop, this is great news. If I can use the technologies I already know and implement them inside some sort of a "frame" and still be able to build a windows or better yet cross platform app.
I know I didn't mention anything about the database, but even a simple hello world desktop app with web technologies would be great to get going.
So how does one go about this? Exactly what do I need/need to know?
You may start with Titanium for desktop dev. Also you may have a look at Chromium Embedded Framework. It's basically a web browser control based on chromium.
It's written in C++ so you can do all the low level OS stuff you want(Growl, tray icons, local file access, com ports, etc) in your container app, and then all the application logic and gui in html/javascript. It allows you to intercept any http request to either serve local resources or perform some custom action. For example, a request to http://localapp.com/SetTrayIconState?state=active could be intercepted by the container and then call the C++ function to update the tray icon.
It also allows you to create functions that can be called directly from JavaScript.
It's very difficult to debug JavaScript directly in CEF. There's no support for anything like Firebug.
You may also try AppJS.com (Helps to build Desktop Applications. for Linux, Windows and Mac using HTML, CSS and JavaScript)
Also, as pointed out by #Clint, the team at brackets.io (Adobe) created an awesome shell using Chromium Embedded Framework that makes it much easier to get started. It is called the brackets shell: github.com/adobe/brackets-shell Find out more about it here: clintberry.com/2013/html5-desktop-apps-with-brackets-shell
NW.js
(Previously known as node-webkit)
I would suggest NW.js if you are familiar with Node or experienced with JavaScript.
NW.js is an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js.
Features
Apps written in modern HTML5, CSS3, JS and WebGL
Complete support for Node.js APIs and all its third party modules.
Good performance: Node and WebKit run in the same thread: Function calls are made straightforward; objects are in the same heap and can just reference each other
Easy to package and distribute apps
Available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows
You can find the NW.js repo here, and a good introduction to NW.js here. If you fancy learning Node.js I would recommend this SO post with a lot of good links.
Awesomium makes it easy to use HTML UI in your C++ or .NET app
Update
My previous answer is now outdated. These days you would be crazy not to look into using Electron for this. Many popular desktop apps have been developed on top of it.
NOTE: AppJS is deprecated and not recommended anymore.
Take a look at NW.js instead.
It seems the solutions for HTML/JS/CSS desktop apps are in no short supply.
One solution I have just come across is TideSDK: http://www.tidesdk.org/, which seems very promising, looking at the documentation.
You can develop with Python, PHP or Ruby, and package it for Mac, Windows or Linux.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Spotify desktop client is just a Webkit-based browser. Of course it exposes specific additional functionality, but it's only able to run JS and render HTML/CSS because it has a JS engine as well as a Chromium rendering engine. This does not help you with coding a client-side web-app and deploying to multiple platforms.
What you're looking for is similar to Sencha Touch - a framework that allows for HTML5 apps to be natively deployed to iOS, Android and Blackberry devices. It basically acts as an intermediary between certain API calls and device-specific functionality available.
I have no experience with appcelerator, bit it appears to be doing exactly that - and get very favourable reviews online. You should give it a go (unless you wanted to go back to 1999 and roll with MS HTA ;)
I know for there's Fluid and Prism (there are others, that's the one I used to use) that let you load a website into what looks like a standalone app.
In Chrome, you can create desktop shortcuts for websites. (you do that from within Chrome, you can't/shouldn't package that with your app) Chrome Frame is different:
Google Chrome Frame is a plug-in designed for Internet Explorer based
on the open-source Chromium project; it brings Google Chrome's open
web technologies to Internet Explorer.
You'd need to have some sort of wrapper like that for your webapp, and then the rest is the web technologies you're used to. You can use HTML5 local storage to store data while the app is offline. I think you might even be able to work with SQLite.
I don't know how you would go about accessing OS specific features, though. What I described above has the same limitations as any "regular" website. Hopefully this gives you some sort of guidance on where to start.
You can build Javascript apps with Adobe AIR… http://www.adobe.com/products/air.html
CEF offers lot of flexibility and options for customisation. But if the intent is to develop quickly node-webkit is also a good option. Node-web kit also offers ability to call node modules directly from DOM.
If there aren't any native modules to integrate Node-Webkit can offer better mileage. With native modules C/C++ or even C# it is better with CEF.
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I am able to develop android native applications using android SDK, but now I'd like to learn how to develop mobile applications using HTML5.
Which tool is used to develop these mobile application in HTML5?
Can anybody help me?
Thanks in advance.
Sencha Touch is a good Javascript framework to create mobile applications. It supports all phones the utilize the webkit for their browser.
It can be wrapped in phonegap to utilize the phone specific API's. Sencha is now creating their own wrapping system to submit apps to the appstores.
While your question can easily be answered by a simple search of "android html5 framework", there is PhoneGap.
This link was the first to show up.
If you want to embed your html inside an android application, you can use the webview widget for android.
Now, talking about how to do your webview itselft. I would recommend to use a mobile framework to build a good looking and accessible application without too much difficulty. I have worked with Jquery Mobile, and I would say it is a good way to start.
Use Apache Cordova http://cordova.apache.org/ as the container for displaying HTML 5 pages.
Use Twitter Bootstrap for creating responsive web pages which automatically resize components based on the size/type of the screen on which the app is being viewed.
Another tool you may want to try is Tiggr (http://gotiggr.com). Tiggr is a cloud service for building HTML5 mobile apps. It comes with visual jQuery Mobile designer.
Note: I'm the Developer Advocate for Tiggr
Since you're an Android developer, you're probably used to writing in Java. You might thus also want to look into Google Web Toolkit, which enables you to write HTML5 apps in Java. There are a number of different GWT libraries for mobile widgets. The questions boils down to whether you want to write in Java or in Javascript.
You may also want to try MoSync (www.mosync.com) for it, the advantage of MoSync is - it's truly cross platform and it let's you write hybrid applications as well (using C++ and HTML5) and being cross platform if you write a plugin it goes on to every platform, which would mean we don't have to write separate plugins in Java, Object C, Dot Net etc. as it is the case on PhoneGap.
I wrote a tutorial to make a HTML5 twitter client app in a minute or so using MoSync and Sencha Touch and it may help you.
You could use RIB to build your HTML5 UI and then add code to it by yourself.
JqueryMobile
A unified, HTML5-based user interface system for all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation.
With Drag and Drop UI tool
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I know there's JScript.NET, but it isn't the same as the JavaScript we know from the web.
Does anyone know if there are any JavaScript based platforms/compilers for desktop development? Most specifically Windows desktop development.
There is XULRunner, which let's you build GUI apps like Firefox using JavaScript and XUL. It has a lot of extension to JavaScript though, using XPCOM. They also offer Prism which let's you build web apps that work offline, sort of like AIR. Yahoo uses it for their Zimbra email desktop client.
Yes, with Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR lets you make desktop applications with Javascript, Flex, or Flash.
Looks like there are 3 types of html5-desktop app
SDK
https://qt-project.org/
http://awesomium.com
http://berkelium.org
http://www.appcelerator.com/platform
Browser runtime
http://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner
http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html
Node.js based
http://appjs.com/
https://github.com/maccman/bowline
Windows 8 allows for Windows Store Apps to be written in HTML5/JavaScript.
"node-webkit is an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js. You can write native apps in HTML and Javascript with node-webkit. It also lets you call Node.js modules directly from the DOM..."
There's Titanium Developer which is similar to Adobe AIR (html+css+javascript), but does not require a framework to be pre-installed.
You can make a desktop application using XML and javascript (and/or VBS) using the Windows Script host.
The trick is to save your XML file with a .hta extension. See this reference.
There's SpiderMonkey, a JavaScript engine written in C and Rhino, an implementation of JavaScript in Java.
Try AppJS, It is an SDK on top of NodeJS and Chromium Embedded Framework. You can build desktop apps easily with the web technologies.
Webpage: http://appjs.com
Github: https://github.com/appjs
Google Gears. There's also Mozilla's XUL, but it's too bit complicated, IMHO (albeit extremely powerful).
Google has a new interesting technology going on. It's in a quite early stage but works good already. It's called Packaged Apps and is using Chrome as a runtime and works on both Pc and Mac. Have a look at http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html
Another option I didn't see mentioned is for Cocoa (Mac OS X, iPhone OS) applications you can use a web view (embedded WebKit) as the application UI.
You can try JavaLikeScript, it does not provide the same native/root objects that a web browser but it has network and user interface features.
Electron, originally Atom Shell, allows applications to be written in web technologies (HTML, JS, CSS) and run on any of the major operating systems, including Windows.
There's Yahoo's Konfabulator for the windows desktop.
Script# has extensions for Vista Gadgets.
http://projects.nikhilk.net/ScriptSharp/
Here are some JSOS (Javascript Operating Systems), sort-of still need a browser.
http://fractalbrain.net/ /* The Best. */
http://cometdesktop.com/ /* Alright. */
http://skylightproject.com/ /* Worst */
I answered with node-webkit above, but I recently saw a presentation on Tint2. It seems to address security concerns with node-webkit and looks promising.