nodewebkit

nodewebkit

An installer for node-webkit.

node-webkit is an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js. For building desktop applications that will run on OSX, Windows and Linux.

usage

Install locally to your project with: npm install nodewebkit and then in your package.json add a script:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "nodewebkit"
  }
}

Now it will run your local project when you type npm start.

If your project is in another folder, add the path to the project "start": "nodewebkit path/to/app".

You could also call the binary directly with node_modules/.bin/nodewebkit instead of adding to your package.json.

global

You can also install globally with npm install nodewebkit -g and then in any project type nodewebkit to run the project. Installing locally is recommended though as each project can have its own dependent version of node-webkit.

example

If you want a really quick example try this:

• git clone https://github.com/zcbenz/nw-sample-apps && cd nw-sample-apps
• npm install nodewebkit
• "node_modules/.bin/nodewebkit" file-explorer

and now you should see a file explorer demo app.

command line options

There are a few (platform-specific) arguments you can pass to the nodewebkit executable to customize your node-webkit application:

• --mac_plist <path-to-plist-file>: (OS X only) Copies the given file to Info.plist in the app bundle. This lets you do things like change your app's name and point to a different icon.

• --mac_icon <path-to-icns-file>: (OS X only) Copies the given .icns file to the Resources/ dir in the app bundle. You will need to point to the file with a custom plist file as well (see --mac_list)

NOTE: These options will keep the copied files in the app bundle for as long as the bundle is on the filesystem (they're not deleted between app invocations). As a result, they're not recommended if you installed nodewebkit globally using -g. Also note that OS X caches these files, so you may need to manually clear these cached files during development.

install a specific version of node-webkit

To install a spcific version of node-webkit use npm with the specific version: npm install nodewebkit@0.9.2

Please note: This npm package version tracks the version of node-webkit that will be installed, with an additional build number that is used for revisions to the installer. As such 0.9.2-1 and 0.9.2-2 will both install node-webkit@0.9.2 but the latter has newer changes to the installer.

finding the path to the node-webkit binary

If you would like to programmatically retrieve the path to the node-webkit binary use:

var findpath = require('nodewebkit').findpath;
var nwpath = findpath();
// nwpath will equal the path to the binary depending on your environment

using a proxy with or without authentication

If you are behind a proxy server you have to set an environment variable http_proxy with proxy servers url:

export http_proxy="http://username:[e-mail]:8080"

or

export http_proxy="http://myproxy.com:8080"

license

node-webkit's code and this installer use the MIT license.