appjs - compile into single executable?

Question

I've spent all night trying different tools for building cross platform desktop apps via html5 and so far appjs seems to be perfect. I've only been playing around with the windows executable-based demo project but I'm wondering if there is any guide or tutorial on how to convert the project to cross platform executables (single files) instead of the appjs loader executable with all the sources in a subfolder.

I've also tried adobe air however css animations is beyond poor, slow/choppy (might be doing something wrong not sure). A year or so ago I was tinkering with titanium however they've since abandoned compiling for desktop.

All I'm basically doing is loading an external URL (eventually will add in authentication).

Forestation

I'm appjs author. We are working on a cloud system that automates executable creation for all platforms we do support. Join appjs mailing list or follow us on twitter to get latest news. – Punak

@MortezaM. So there isn't any way to do this now then? – Arredondo

@MortezaM. I have searched for APPJS single excutables. Nothing found, only your comments talking about a cloud solution. But APPJS is an offline desktop application, why that cloud solution so that the user is forced to the internet connection? Why not just 1 .exe file including the whole project? – Purloin

Answer 1

Titanium Desktop (now called TideSDK) is not dead. It has been taken over by the community and is in full swing for a new version coming out this year. There are a good amount of developers working on it, as well as many people from the community contributing example code, documentation, and tutorials.

If your looking for serious cross platform this is a great way to go, as for your executable, it turns the application (using some special build scripts) into a native installer for Window, .DMG file for Mac, and whatever format you need for *Nix platforms.

Congener

I did try installing the tidesdk, it didn't show in titanium. I did some googling around and others had the same issue, seems like only solution was to downgrade to a previous titanium version. – Forestation

is it really not abandoned? I understand that community is great, but there has to be a leader even in open source project. Someone (Company) who needs framework/technology and, for sure, will develop it. – Specialty

It is not abandoned, the google group is very active, TideSDK has received funding and resources from multiple companies who use it in their workflow, and it is being actively developed. The lead David Pratt, has promised to update the community with progress in the xent few days. Check out the google group : [email protected] – Congener

I am the Project Lead for TideSDK. The legacy code that was not in the best of condition. See http://www.tidesdk.org/blog/2012/11/16/1-dot-3-1-beta-release-announcement. Over 1 million line changes were made to bring the code into some decent condition and there has been full time effort on code for months that will culminate in TideSDK-1.4.0 There is another point release in the 1.3 series anticipated in December 2012 and announcements are coming on official support very soon. – Caesium

So 2014 - and it looks pretty dead on 1.3.1. It works - but seems sluggish, and is not quite compatible with JS frameworks - don't expect a nice web ui/webapp to port smoothly (old webkit). TideKit seems to be static too. A shame as it looked like an interesting idea. – Stuck

Answer 2

I was interested in the same technology almost year ago too. Also today I remembered about this problem and started to look for an answer. I'll mention that I DO NOT tried to create apps, just read the web. Here is what I've found.

Good frameworks so far:

• TideSDK - I also thought it was abandoned. If anyone knows serious apps or companies involved with this technology, let me know
• PhoneGap - I heard it's quite good, but have some flaws. Never tried. Could be interesting.
• AppJS - I came to the same conclusions. Everything is great, besides NodeJS as server. I don't like NodeJS, or maybe I don't like the idea to write business logic/server side code in Javascript language. Javascript itself is hard to maintain. And if someone tells me it's fast. OK, it is, but PyPy vs NodeJS. So it's not the case. V8 as engine for UI is great. Write UI in HTML5, JS, CSS and do server stuff at any local Python/.NET/Java/Ruby server is the best idea for me.
• There is also something like jQUery Mobile, haven't tried so far

Also I've found: Mobile Frameworks Comparison Matrix.

Still haven't found the One. Let me know if you find something interesting :)

EDIT:

CEF - Chromium Embedded Framework could be also interesting option. Someone stated AppJS is built on top of that.

EDIT

Nice categorization and few examples

Also looks promising Googles javascript apps

Specialty

Answer 3

Actually node-webkit supports executables, even though it includes a node.js runtime with the app itself. So it adds extra memory. But overall it works great!

Photojournalism