nw

Overview ¶

Call a golang web application from node-webkit to get a native looking application.

Instructions ¶

Go get golang-nw:

go get github.com/lonnc/golang-nw/cmd/golang-nw-pkg

Create an app:

See https://github.com/lonnc/golang-nw/blob/master/cmd/example/main.go

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"github.com/lonnc/golang-nw"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	// Setup our handler
	http.HandleFunc("/", hello)

	// Create a link back to node-webkit using the environment variable
	// populated by golang-nw's node-webkit code
	nodeWebkit, err := nw.New()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	// Pick a random localhost port, start listening for http requests using default handler
	// and send a message back to node-webkit to redirect
	if err := nodeWebkit.ListenAndServe(nil); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
}

func hello(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello from golang.")
}

Build your app:

go install .\src\github.com\lonnc\golang-nw\cmd\example

Wrap it in node-webkit:

.\bin\golang-nw-pkg.exe -app=.\bin\example.exe -name="My Application" -bin="myapp.exe" -toolbar=false

Building:        myapp.exe.nw
Downloading:     https://s3.amazonaws.com/node-webkit/v0.8.4/node-webkit-v0.8.4-win-ia32.zip
Packaging:       myapp.exe

You are now good to go:

.\myapp.exe

You may want to create your own build script so you can control window dimensions etc. See http://godoc.org/github.com/lonnc/golang-nw/build and https://github.com/lonnc/golang-nw/blob/master/cmd/golang-nw-pkg/pkg.go

Command line options:

$ ./bin/golang-nw-pkg -h
Usage of ./bin/golang-nw-pkg:
  -app="myapp": Web application to be wrapped by node-webkit.
  -arch="amd64": Target arch [386|amd64].
  -bin="myapp": Destination file for combined application and node-webkit .nw file (will be placed in binDir directory).
  -binDir=".": Destination directory for bin and dependencies.
  -cacheDir=".": Directory to cache node-webkit download.
  -frame=true: Set to false to make window frameless.
  -fullscreen=false: Enable fullscreen mode.
  -includesDir="": Directory containing additional files to bundle with the .nw file
  -name="My Application": Application name.
  -os="linux": Target os [linux|windows|darwin].
  -toolbar=true: Enable toolbar.
  -version="v0.9.2": node-webkit version.

Known issues:

1) libudev.so.0 - On ubuntu >=13.10 (and similar) libudev.so.0 has been removed. tl;dr:

$ ./bin/golang-nw-pkg -app=./bin/example -name="My Application" -bin="myapp" -toolbar=false
$ sed -i -e 's/udev\.so\.0/udev.so.1/g' myapp

Node-webkit has various work arounds described at https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/The-solution-of-lacking-libudev.so.0

2) Download of node-webkit appears to stall - It's a ~43MB download and can take longer than expected (it could do with some feedback).