I want to develop a desktop app with electron without using nodejs (i don't want to use any server, a plain desktop app) to access the local files in the machine.
Node.js is a Javascript runtime, using it doesn't mean you need to use it to run a server of any kind. In fact, Electron uses Node.js internally to implement "lower level operating system interactions", like the ability to read local files.
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I have created a Node js Web application which is running on an express server. It is a web automation application which is made using puppeteer. I want this app to run in headful mode which is not possible if I deploy this on servers (for eg Heroku). So instead of deploying this application,I wanted to create a desktop app which runs this application on the local host everytime. Is there any way to convert this web application to a desktop application and run it on local host through the desktop app only?
Your best bet would be using Electron.
It is used for cross-platform apps with Nodejs and interacts like website, so you wouldn't need to rebuilt your app from scratch.
I'm new to web servers in nodejs and i'd like to know if there is possible to have an electron like node integration in a web server (to be able to use nodejs in index.js script file linked to index.html)
Thx for all :)
It's not possible. Browsers control the way that client side JavaScript is executed, so it's just technically impossible to connect both runtimes in any way that works on client machine, you'd need a customized browser, which is what Electron basically is. And neither should you want to - if the runtimes were connected in that way, any user could execute arbitrary commands on your server.
I have NodeJS server for my iPhone and Android apps and I want to build an admin panel as desktop application using Electron.
From my research, I found out that Electron depends on its own version of node and it can't run on other server instance.
My questions are:
1) is it advisable to implement the admin panel using Electron knowing that it depends on its own version of NodeJS?
2) is there away to integrate my current NodeJS server for mobile apps to my Electron? because using two different servers will be costly when it comes to hosting them
3) what are other alternatives that enable me to implement cross-platform desktop application using my current mobile apps server?
NOTE: The admin panel server functionality are completely different from mobile apps.
1) is it advisable to implement the admin panel using Electron knowing that it depends on its own version of NodeJS?
Yes, that is perfectly fine. You can access your current node server directly from your electron app, or create a new node server that electron will access.
2) is there away to integrate my current NodeJS server for mobile apps to my Electron? because using two different servers will be costly when it comes to hosting them
You can run multiple nodejs servers on one machine (just use different ports when starting the servers). This is one easy way to get around this issue, or you can just have a group of /admin endpoints that handle all admin related functionality. Think of electron has a front-end that can be distributed across various platforms and access any back-end you choose.
3) what are other alternatives that enable me to implement cross-platform desktop application using my current mobile apps server?
Electron / nwjs (node-webkit) are the only two that come to mind. Although there are probably others.
More Electron/nwjs details:
Just think of these as browsers that allow you to write nodejs. Therefore, within the browser you can access databases you ship with your app, or anything on the users file system. You can also make requests from your app to already created nodejs servers. Also, they allow you to easily package up your app for cross-platform distribution.
I am kind of new to Node.js but I built an application and am pretty happy with it. I was wondering how would I go about uploading my Node.js application to an FTP server? Is it even possible to do this?
A Node.JS application is just a collection of files. You can upload them to another computer using FTP just like any other files.
That probably isn't what you are trying to ask though.
If you want to host a website built as a Node.JS application then you need to be using hosting that either:
Explicitly supports Node.JS (Google finds this list) or
Gives you full admin access (such as a virtual or dedicated server)
Such hosting will generally give you (at a minimum) shell access (via SSH) which you can use to run the Node.JS application.
I have a nodejs app with modules, views etc..
Is it possible to open this app with node-webkit instead of opening it in the browser ?
Thanks.
Yes, it is. Node-WebKit is a package with browser + node web server. But I believe you will probably want to change your architecture, because you don't need the client-server style. If you run your app without any changes, node-WebKit will act just like node server and you still need a browser to access the app. There is no reason to use node-WebKit instead of pure node in this case.
To use node-WebKit embedded browser you should know that there are no need to start node server. The browser's JavaScript environment is already connected to node and you can execute node commands and packages direct from the JavaScript files (eg.: access file system from the browser, a dream to every web developer). It's like you are running a browser inside the server, without the need of make requests and receive responses... For this reason you don't need to use packages as socket.io, cause the communication is already established. But you can use the fact of node is a server to easily establish communication between different machines, for example.