I make these browser scripts in JavaScript and use them in tamper monkey or the console. I make these scripts for various tasks like automating different functions on websites that are not mine. I was wondering if there is a way to use these scripts without the browser but as a desktop application. I have heard about node.js and hopefully I can use it for what I want. I'm not really familiar with node.js but use applications made by node.
Thanks!
nodejs isn't really what you are looking for even though what you are looking to do can be accomplished using libraries written for nodejs. Look into PhantomJS and Selenium (webdriver.io)
Currently speaking you can't do that with desktop applications made with Native APIs like .NET Windows Applications or Cocoa OSX applications, because what you're doing with TamperMonkey is manipulating the Webpage(DOM) which is usually not accessible, when it is there in desktop applications.
The only desktop apps you might be able to do that on, are Electron apps since they're using the DOM, if you have access to the dev tools in the app you can run JavaScript just like in Chrome dev tools.
Look into AutoHotkey for automating keystrokes and mouse clicks if you're on Windows, see if it might help you automate according to your needs.
Related
Is it possible to pack s single page application (its JavaScript files and images and all the assets) so that it can be distributed as a native
desktop application? Like having an instance of Chrome without any button that just runs your application offline.
I've used software that seems to be crafted like that, for example TweetDeck by Twitter gives me the impression of being just the web-version of TweetDeck packed in some way to run in a context that is not your standard browser.
You can use NW.js (previously Node WebKit) or Electron to do just that.
There's NW.js.
To package nodejs / html apps on the desktop.
You can do it by implementing a headless browser application.
There is an open source web browser engine here https://www.webkit.org/.
You incorporate it in a native application and parse the source files.
The webkit documentation presumably contains the specifics, have fun :)
Very much possible and all HTML5 apps are doing that, all your need is this:
https://cordova.apache.org/
We have a very simple digital signage application that loads six web pages and rotates through them in an iframe.
We thought we would like to take this application and run in kiosk mode as a chromium app. However, simply using the HTML in the page has thrown all kinds of errors for the app. The most consistent on is the illegal use of external images, css, and fonts as well as complaints about javascript libraries, etc.
It looks as though it will be extremely painful to try to make this into a kiosk app.
Is it possible to make this type of conversion?
Does anyone have advice as to how to proceed?
Can you pull in external pages into a Chromium app?
You cannot run Javascript on a browser via local filesystem for security reasons. But what you could do is package the web app as a local app.
One option is to use Windows HTML Application (HTA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
But this requires Internet Explorer to run.
Another option that sounds great is using Node Webkit. I have never done it before, but seems very powerful.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodewebkit
You can write a powerful Javascript app and run it locally this way.
UPDATE
Official Node Webkit website:
http://nwjs.io/
What's the best way to turn an HTML/Javascript web app into a self-contained app that can be run from Windows (and maybe Mac/Linux) PC's? Preferably without any installation, ie a network share.
I have looked into Chrome and Firefox Portable, but these require write access to the folder, so are unsuitable for running off a read-only network share.
(some background, I have a big javascript app but many of my clients are using IE6 or 7. Their IT teams won't allow Chrome Frame, or other modern browsers).
node-webkit sounds most promising.
From the README on the github repository:
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 to call Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new
way of writing native applications with all Web technologies.
If LightTable can be built with it, certainly a web application can be ported and run natively using it.
I know this is a bit late, but what about Sencha Desktop Packager?
http://www.sencha.com/products/desktop-packager
It was primarily developed for ExtJS apps, but it should work on any JavaScript app.
We had a similar requirement and ended up building a dedicated web browser using QT. However if we'd known about the Sencha Desktop Packager before we may have gone for that.
I am looking for Titanium Appcelerator alternatives for Desktop application development with HTML and JavaScript. I want to convert a web app to a desktop application. Hence, there will be a lot of server interaction. Appcelerator was a good choice, but it looks like the company is no longer interested in the Desktop SDK. Also, ajax request from Appcelerator does not retain cookies.
I read that Adobe Air can be used for desktop app development, but I don't want to use flash.
How good is XULRunner? Will it allow features like Growl notificaiton and creating tray icons?
Will I be able to develop applications using mostly Javascript and HTML in Qt?
I started looking into Titanium for desktop dev. I liked the concept but not the implementation. I then stumbled upon chromiumembedded and have been mostly very happy with it. It's basically a web browser control based on chromium.
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
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.
My biggest challenge has been debuging. It's very difficult to debug javascript directly in CEF. There's no support for anything like Firebug that I am aware of.
Appjs (appjs.org) looks very promising.
You could also check Bowline which is another alternative: http://bowlineapp.com/.
Although it's not officially intended for general-purpose use, a number of people have had success using brackets-shell for HTML/JS desktop apps. It embeds Chromium (CEF) and adds APIs for menu bar management and file IO. It also embeds an instance of Node.js so you get access to all its APIs for launching processes, etc. It's MIT-licensed and available for Mac & Win, with a Linux version currently making rapid progress.
As I mentioned, it's not officially a general-purpose app shell, but someone wrote a detailed blog post about how to customize brackets-shell for your own uses.
I notice that the other answer about Titanum says CEF is hard to debug. I'm not sure if that's true in Titanium, but in brackets-shell it's easy to debug JS – you just open http://localhost:9234/ to load a full instance of the Chrome Developer Tools (including breakpoints, profiling, etc.).
TideSDK is a continuation of the old Titanium desktop http://www.tidesdk.org/
I'm currently in the need of developing a Windows application. I want to keep things simple (in the spirit of uTorrent) and I would like the result program to be a single .exe file containing all that it needs.
The program is simple. It just needs some UI. It needs to run for a long period of time (lay there as a tray icon). It needs to do some routine tasks like simple I/O. It also needs to access the internet, specifically some web server.
Apart from these small requirements I would like to write all of it in JavaScript, as I feel more comfortable with it than any other language.
I know there's things like Windows Script Host that let you run JavaScript programs and interact with some Win32 API, but will I be able to do everything I need with Windows Script Host? Can I pack all of the Windows Script Host in a single .exe?
If not, what alternatives do I have for JavaScript?
I found that there's actually a JavaScript compiler that comes with the .NET framework called jsc.exe.
For more information:
http://www.phpied.com/make-your-javascript-a-windows-exe/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7435xtz6(VS.80).aspx
I guess it's not really JavaScript since it introduces extra things like import and even some class syntax which is weird for me. But this works perfectly for me as I will just doing things as I am used to on the web.
Aside from Windows Script Host, there are
Windows Desktop Gadgets (Vista and Windows 7 only)
HTML Applications (HTAs)
Both are written with standard web technologies, HTML, JavaScript, Flash, etc. They can also be extended with COM objects/ActiveX controls such as FileSystemObject, WMI, WScript or even ones that you write yourself. Windows Desktop Gadgets have access to a separate API/namespace with various Win32-esque properties and methods.
It seems that nobody mentioned JSDB.
JSDB offers a command line environment which you can execute arbitrary javascript code. You can easily compile to a .exe file by using the command copy /b jsdb.exe+program.zip program.exe
It's important to know that you've got to call your main js file main.js within a standard zip file. Not sure if the name program.zip is required.
I haven't actually tried making GUI applications with this yet - although it seems to support various APIs like ActiveX.
It's possible that by using the copy /b command mentioned above, you could compile a script from the wscript.exe file - but I tried and couldn't get it working. Let me know if anybody tries and has success somehow.
I think you're looking for Adobe AIR
The Adobe® AIR® 2 runtime enables developers to use HTML, JavaScript, Adobe Flash® software, and ActionScript® to build web applications that run as standalone client applications without the constraints of a browser. ~ The AIR website
Internet Explorer introduced the concept of Hypertext Applications in IE 5. It never made a big breakthrough, so resources and documentation are scarce.
Mozilla-backed competitor Prism seems to be alive and well, though, and is definitely worth a look.
Prism is an application that lets users split web applications
out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop
I believe the best way to go is V8 JavaScript Engine provided by Google.
"V8 can run standalone, or can be embedded into any C++ application." - which I believe is perfect for your needs, because you can do most of the stuff in JavaScript and use provided interfaces to communicate with the system.
I'm not 100% but I believe WSH uses JScript or WScript, not JavaScript.
Color me crazy, but its only a short step form Javascript to Java or C#. I'd suggest C# as, on a windows machine, the libraries are already there. You can just copypaste your .exe and let 'er rip.
If you want a single .EXE, what runtimes are you okay if they are required pre-requisites?
If you're okay with requiring .NET runtime to be preinstalled, then you do all your work in JScript.NET
Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) may give you some help. i have not clearly know how, but i realy found many Apps using this framework.
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
Introduce for CEF are:
The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open source project founded by Marshall Greenblatt in 2008 to develop a Web browser control based on the Google Chromium project. CEF currently supports a range of programming languages and operating systems and can be easily integrated into both new and existing applications. It was designed from the ground up with both performance and ease of use in mind. The base framework includes C and C++ programming interfaces exposed via native libraries that insulate the host application from Chromium and WebKit implementation details. It provides close integration between the browser control and the host application including support for custom plugins, protocols, JavaScript objects and JavaScript extensions. The host application can optionally control resource loading, navigation, context menus, printing and more, while taking advantage of the same performance and HTML5 technologies available in the Google Chrome Web browser.
Numerous individuals and organizations contribute time and resources to support CEF development, but more involvement from the community is always welcome. This includes support for both the core CEF project and external projects that integrate CEF with additional programming languages and frameworks (see the "External Projects" section below).
Why not use Rhino -- JavaScript on the JVM? You can even compile your scripts to .class files and package them into a JAR along with Rhino for easy distribution...