I think the title should be quite self-explanatory. I am developing a Node JS app using Atom Electron. What I would need is a way to deploy my application in a cross-platform way (Mac OS X, Windows and Linux), while making it capable of automatically updating itself, without having to ask for administration privileges.
Here is what I would like to happen:
The application gets installed by my users, possibly via an easy-to-use installer.
I keep developing my app, adding new features, and so on.
At some point, I release a new version of my code, I pack it somehow and upload it somewhere.
All the clients that are currently online, or whenever a client gets back online, they download the new version, install it, and restart automatically, without having to ask for administration privileges.
As far as I know, there are apps that are capable of doing such a thing. For example, Google Chrome automatically installs updates without having to continuously ask for administrative privileges or, even worse, making its users download new installers all the time.
Is there an elegant and cross platform way to do such a thing? What would be the best solution for my problem?
If this is matters in any way, let me add that my project is completely open source, so I don't care about protecting my code in any way from being read.
Related
There are a lot of questions on this topic, but they don't seem to distinguish between executables for desktop or server-side apps. I suppose my first question would be: what's the difference? For example, Zeit/pkg says they are a "node.js binary compiler", whereas nwjs (formerly node-webkit) says they are a "an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js".
I tried zeit/pkg and it works great, but have read that there can be performance issues unless it's configured properly. I wanted to make sure I was choosing the right tool and came across nwjs. It seems to do a lot of the same stuff pkg does, but has a larger following, as well as more docs and a robust api. Can I use nwjs as a server-side executable (i.e. not using the desktop feature) the same way I would use pkg?
This answer states that nwjs "is an option, but it really isn't set-up to do a server - client type relationship", but then a comment says "you can launch a server from node-webkit just in the way you launch it in Node.js. It's just that node-webkit provide another way beyond B/S architecture".
So, is nwjs effectively the same as pkg, or fundamentally different?
I realize that there's also Electron, which states "build cross platform desktop apps" and appears similar to nwjs. I'm not trying to get into a Electron vs nwjs debate, but rather desktop vs. server, if there's a difference.
you got most things already, only few clarifications are needed. Reason nw.js / Electron declares itself as for desktop application is, it's core architectural design is intended to integrate node.js with chromium to have UI enables create application does have UI. You can still use part of those framework (node.js side) without initiating visible ui, in that case behaviorwise it'll be similar to plain node.js does. Still there is caveat, like as it tightly integrated with chromium in core already for some cases you should have screen to chromium correctly initiates (or creating virtual buffer as lot of CI does, or etcs).
Also, when your concern is performance, I'd doubt using UI framework for server side work achieves what you desire - while there won't be huge, integration between node to chromium have overhead compare to bare node.js obvioulsy.
Getting back to original question, I feel question itself is somewhat vague. If the intention is truly server side application probably you won't need to package it but correctly deploy node and its dependency modules or packaging it sort of installable manner instead of creating single binary as pkg does.
We are about to start a new project which should be like a desktop app but still run inside a browser for creating items in a system. After these items are created, an .EXE file on the LOCAL machine must be called to do some code generation. Is this possible if using Angular to develop the application or do we need third party libs for executing local .exe's?
No, this is not possible out of the box. Browsers make very sure that local executables cannot be started. You would have to look for other solutions.
One possible idea, depending on how much effort you want to invest, would be to compile the WebKit engine yourself, i.e., create a binary "wrapper" which runs the browser engine itself. Then you are free to extend it in whatever fashion you need, including adding the possibility to start local .exe's (or if those .exe's are your own applications, you could compile them right into your WebKit wrapper).
I have recently bought a Asustor AS-302T NAS, which is an absolutely brilliant solution for the home. One of it's most impressive features is that you can install apps which extends the ordinary behavior of a NAS. And if you are a developer you can also create your own apps.
While apps are fun, I have more interest in using my NAS as a kitchen-sink for my personal nodejs projects. In short I want to run nodejs application that I can then call from various other machines around the house. My own mini-cloud for IOT experiments.
Installing, one click only
Having installed NodeJS through App-Central I am at a loss how exactly to start using NodeJS on my NAS. The whole installation is essentially an on/off switch with no options or visible settings at all. I can find no documentation on practical tasks like uploading a nodejs application, deal with access rights or even execute it.
Under Windows or OS-X I would use npm via the command-line or shell, but Asustor is a purely html based interface (with the exception of XBMC through HDMI).
Why offer to users the option of installing NodeJS -if it's impossible to actually use it?
So my question has three aspects to it:
How do i get access to npm on my Asustor NAS
How do i get my NodeJS application running
Is it possible to run my application as a service (executed when the NAS boots)?
From the ASUSTOR Developer's Guide: apps are installed into
/usr/local/AppCentral/$APP_NAME.
NodeJS executables will be at path /usr/local/AppCentral/nodejs/bin/node and /usr/local/AppCentral/nodejs/bin/npm.
You can login to NAS via SSH and add them to PATH variable, or create symlinks...
I'm also searching for solution how to run them as a service (daemon), maybe an /etc/init.d script might help.
I'm plan to release my web application under node-webkit platform and allow users to install it on their local machine. But before, I need to understand how will I update this application?
I see the following two approaches:
Download a new version of new application and replace older one
Autoupdate node-webkit application like Google Chrome does (so users don't need to do anything except rebooting application).
I'm very interested how should I do the second approach? Could you share your experience with maintaining of your node-webkit based applications?
Thanks!
I've created a NodeJS application which scrapes and parses the contents of a web page at regular intervals, checking if certain things on the web page have been updated since the last time it was parsed. The application runs locally, in the background.
I need the application to be able to provide me with some sort of a notification for when these things are updated. Is there any way that the application can show a tooltip in the Windows tray area, or provide any other sort of notification to me?
The only thing I can find is node-notify (https://github.com/olalonde/node-notify), but that appears to be for Ubuntu. As a last resort, I could have the application run a local web server and update the contents of a page based on whether anything on the scraped web page has been updated, then use something else entirely (e.g. an AutoHotkey script) which checks the page on the local web server to see if anything has changed, and use that to display the tooltips. Obviously, it would be much easier if the application itself could notify me in some way.
There is a node-growl module from visionmedia.
You just need to install Growl and growlnotify manually and then the node module with:
npm install growl
Then, it's as easy as doing:
var growl = require('growl');
growl('Hello World!');
There are more examples (including use of images) on the projects' site.
While Growl is definitely the more visually appealing option, I'd like to propose Notifu as an alternative for future readers of this question.
Fair warning: it has not been updated since Feb 2010, but still...
It does still work on Win7.
It does not require any additional software to be installed on the computer.
It can be packaged with the Node.js app.
Can be easily integrated using any of the numerous Node modules for running system commands.