Building a cross platform app that utilizes a native C library (using P/Invoke) to send commands to a remote server, how can it be architected to suit the MVVMCross framework?
Thanks!
It's not clear which framework(s) you are using.
Assuming iOS, see how to use P/Invoke at http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/advanced_topics/native_interop
After getting the P/Invoke to work, if you need to access this in PCL code, then you'll need to use some form of dependency injection technique - one such technique is plugins - https://speakerdeck.com/cirrious/plugins-in-mvvmcross
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I'm working on a project which is an open-source cloud, similar to Nextcloud. It also provides a file upload and manage feature.
I'd like to have a shell namespace extension which displays those files and folders in the Windows Explorer. Moving, deleting, renaming and editing files / folders should be possible.
Data is available from a REST API or my Electron Client.
I know NodeJS and only some C#.
Is it possible whith NodeJS / Electron to create a shell namespace extension?
If not, are there any free libraries which make this task easier?
Windows Explorer uses 'COM' as its extension model. Therefore, technically speaking, you can use whatever you like, as long as it supports COM.
For NodeJS, you'd be dependent on the runtime to provide the COM support for you and to wrap the appropriate APIs. I'm not aware of any project that does this for the Windows Shell APIs. Here is one for the WinRT APIs.
For C# (.NET), again you'd be dependent on the runtime for COM support. .NET does expose that to you; although it is messy. There are a few projects which wrap the shell APIs and try to hide the COM interop goo as best they can for you.
Here is an open source one.
Here is a commercial one.
Be aware that Microsoft advises against building shell extensions which require a runtime (EG: .NET). The runtime may be loaded into processes that aren't expecting it. Therefore, in practice, Microsoft expects you to use C/C++ to build shell extensions. Here is the Microsoft supplied sample project. It is written in C++.
We are looking into migrating our Objc Application to an Electron one, since the native one is just a WebWrapper around a website already.
We are missing one important feature: the ability to use QuickLook to preview files.
We managed to wrap qlmanage (Quick Look Server debug and management tool) in a npm module (based on this older code) but this is not the same as using QLPreviewPanel.
qlmanage launches an app in the Dock, and can spawn multiple instances of it, unlike QLpreviewPanel.
Does anyone managed to use Quicklook properly with Electron?
Is it possible to create a npm module in C++ using the Foundation Framework from Apple, and then requiring this module from Electron?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
We ended up adding this feature directly in Electron.
This will be released soon on the BrowserWindow api, with the following method signature:
previewFile(path [,displayname])
This way everyone gets to use it!
I have a Win8 app that is purely native (c++) and I've already used a library that is written using managed code AFAIK. No issues there, I created objects and addressed them using C++/CX with ref counted pointers etc.
I need to add a new library, I referenced it as I did previously, but when I declare and object and try to address it I get:
error C3624: 'System::Object': use of this type requires a reference to assembly 'mscorlib'
Using #using <mscorlib.dll> is not a solution obviously, because WinRT does not support #using of a managed assembly.
When I look up the definition of the class I'm using in Object Browser I see that it's inherited from System::Object. The previous library had a class that was inherited from Platform::Object which is valid for C++/CX.
I already contacted the developers of current library I'm trying to use, but it takes a lot of time for them to respond.
Can I work around this issue? What are the possible courses of action?
UPD: Can I ask the developers to rebuild a library for C++/CX?
I do not believe this is going to work in the general case, unless the C# library is a PCL (portable class library). If it leverages anything that is not in the WinRT .NET client profile, it simply will not work.
If it is a PCL, what you can do is write a C# Windows Runtime Component that itself has a reference to this third-party library and wraps the necessary functionality. Then you reference that C# Windows Runtime Component from your C++/Cx application.
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I want to build a code editor in nodejs. There is option like using an express server to show editor and to execute code in backend. But that would require a browser. So I am looking for node modules that can provide standalone gui for windows platform.
There are a couple of different options, depending on how you want to proceed.
Option 1:
Use something like QT or GTK bindings to make a more traditional GUI application. These options generally are just Node bindings to the C/C++ API that GTK and QT expose. See node-qt and yue. Although these seem to not be actively developed.
Update:
You can take a look at NodeGUI: https://github.com/nodegui/nodegui
NodeGUI is a javascript library for building cross-platform native desktop applications with JavaScript and CSS like styling. It uses Qt under the hood and works on Mac, Linux and Windows.
It also has a react based renderer called React NodeGUI which is like React Native but for desktop: https://github.com/nodegui/react-nodegui
Option 2:
Use a framework that takes HTML, CSS, and Javascript and bundles it into a standalone HTML5 app. There are a bunch of frame works out there that do this. Examples include node-webkit and AppJS among many others.
I recommend using an HTML/JS/CSS Framework
Option #1: Electron by GitHub.
Website | GitHub Repo | Releases
It's easier than you think
If you can build a website, you can build a desktop app. Electron is a
framework for creating native applications with web technologies like
JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It takes care of the hard parts so you can
focus on the core of your application.
Option #2: NW.js (previously known as node-webkit).
Website | GitHub Repo | Releases
Call all Node.js modules directly from DOM/WebWorker and enable a new
way of writing applications with all Web technologies.
Electron and NWJS Pros:
AppJS is officially deprecated
Electron is similar to NW.js but newer, more popular and has a bigger community and updates more frequently. I recommend it.
NWJS always uses the latest Versions of Chromium and Node while Electron takes more time to catch up.
NWJS supports [JavaScript Source Protection][1] by compiling it to V8 native code. Electron does not.
NWJS have a Legacy release for Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.6 support.
Electron and NWJS both use MIT license.
You can compare the contributions to electron with NW.js
Electron and NWJS Cons:
there is no out-of-the-bag run-time solution currently, so you'll have to ship it with your code (~50MB compressed and +100MB uncompressed) or find a way around it.
depending on your app, Electron/NWJS might considered an overkill especially since its startup time is less than ideal, just something to take into account.
no native look, you'll have to create your own UI elements using CSS or using some framework.
Option #3: DeskGap.
Website | GitHub Repo | Releases
DeskGap is a framework for building cross-platform desktop apps with
web technologies (JavaScript, HTML and CSS).
To enable native capabilities while keeping the size down, DeskGap
bundles a Node.js runtime and leaves the HTML rendering to the
operating system‘s webview.
Lightweight since the webview is provided by the operating system.
The API is still quite limited (pretty much a work in progress).
Requires new OS versions.
Apart from the other answers here:
You can take a look at NodeGUI: https://github.com/nodegui/nodegui
NodeGUI is a javascript library for building cross-platform native
desktop applications with JavaScript and CSS like styling. It uses Qt
under the hood and works on Mac, Linux and Windows.
It also has a react based renderer called React NodeGUI which is like React Native but for desktop: https://github.com/nodegui/react-nodegui
Also, its under active development.
I recently discovered https://github.com/yue/yue and I'm having nice experience. It's lightweight, has descent packaging support (and even react/JSX support) and is truly native with decent webview, portable and easy to build target platform's.
Although it seems discontinued I found this project unique, it's really native with options to add a descent webview. I retake some PRs and forked it and I'm adding TypeScript types and documentation since it's really clean/straight forward API, easy to build target platform files. this is my fork although I would like/searching for other users adding missing parts: https://github.com/cancerberoSgx/node-gui . The cons is that it implements node.js event loop so you must use yode (node.js fork) in order for promises and asynchronous code to work well with the GUI code.. m
I wonder if others have experience with this library or forks.
Answer specific to your question may be NodeGui (powered by Qt5, NodeGui-React)
There are many other options. I'm listing a few options below,
electron (Lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using
JavaScript, HTML and CSS, based on Node.js & Chromium)
carlo (Requires Node & Google Chrome to be installed on the system to
run)
NW.js (Similar to electron, provides Source code protection)
DeskGap (bundles a Node.js runtime and leaves the HTML rendering to
the operating system‘s webview)
Proton Native (does the same to desktop that React Native did to
mobile, based on https://github.com/parro-it/libui-node)
For more, you can use my github repo electron-alternatives to pick a cross-platform desktop development option.
Recently also Node-gir may be worth a look: https://github.com/Place1/node-gir
Allows to use Gnome/Glib/Gobject-based libraries from Nodejs. Will allow you to use GTK+.
I'm using Mono For Android (probably will use MonoTouch too soon) and MVVM-Cross to port of a Windows Store app (Work on progress by another team, in Parallel).
Unfortunately the Windows store app team started of without using MVVM-Cross. That lead to some Windows specific libraries (like Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources) being scattered across code that should be portable across other platforms (for eg "Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.ResourceLoader" was used for localization).
I was wondering if there's a cross-platform alternative (or may be a mvvm-cross plugin) for some of these windows libraries. Or may be guidance on how to create my own plugin/alternative.
There is a resourceloader plugin which uses windows package content files and android asset files.
See https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross/blob/v3/Plugins/Cirrious/ResourceLoader/Cirrious.MvvmCross.Plugins.ResourceLoader.WindowsStore/MvxStoreResourceLoader.cs
It is used in (for example) the customer management sample in order to load an XML data file - see https://github.com/slodge/MvvmCross-Tutorials/blob/master/Sample%20-%20CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement/CustomerManagement/Models/SimpleDataStore.cs
It's also used internally in the json i18n plugin.
If you want a different implementation on one platform, then you can override the plugin for just that platform.
If you want a different implementation on all platforms, then it should be easy to create your own plugin, or to inject implementation of an interface on each platform. See the explanation of mvvmcross IOC in Instantiation of ViewModels and Service classes