Quick Review of Desktop and Native Apps using Javascript
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This document reviews several options for building desktop applications with JavaScript, including GLUEScript, Seed, GJS, Qt Script, QtQuick, and TopCube. It finds that the GTK-based options like Seed and GJS have issues, while Qt-based approaches need more investigation. It also discusses using Node.js with TopCube or HTML5 for desktop GUIs, and native platforms like Java and Objective-C for phone apps. The document concludes that further options should be explored but typical bindings for C++ and Python may be better for desktop for now.
Quick Review of Desktop and Native Apps using Javascript
- 1. Quick Review of 'Desktop' / 'Native' Applications with Javascript
- 2. Agenda Why? Why Not? GLUEScript (http://gluescript.sourceforge.net) Seed (http://live.gnome.org/Seed) GJS (http://live.gnome.org/Gjs) Qt Script (http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qtscript.html) QtQuick (http://qt.nokia.com/qtquick/) Topcube (https://github.com/creationix/topcube) Phones Summary
- 3. Why Desktop / Native in JS? Javascript is... ...a fair choice as a language for building a UI ...embeddable in other languages, esp. C++ ...also in your web-apps (code reuse???) I am in search of something 'better' than web- apps in certain problem domains
- 4. Why Not? Limited API ? Code reuse could be difficult Slow ? Package Hell ! :( ???
- 5. GLUEScript G)lueing L)ibraries U)sing E)cma-Script http://gluescript.sourceforge.net SpiderMonkey + POCO (C++) + wxWidgets Windows / C++ focused Building on Linux hard – I couldn't get there Mac ? Not worth it yet – could be great when they get to apt-get install gluescript
- 6. Seed Javascript for GTK Apps using WebKit's JS core http://live.gnome.org/Seed GObjectIntrospection to bridge into GNOME Brittle on my machine – Seg-Faults, missing or incompatible dependencies (probably Gtk) Demo
- 7. GJS Javascript for GTK using Spidermonkey http://live.gnome.org/Gjs GObjectIntrospection to bridge into GNOME Similar issues to Seed Demo
- 8. Qt Script Scripting Engine for Nokia's Qt framework http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qtscript.html Typical scripting access to native Qt objects WebKit's JavascriptCore
- 9. Qt Quick Q)t UI C)reation K)it http://qt.nokia.com/qtquick/ QML – a JS- / CSS- like language Desktop and 'Web' devices Access to the Qt Framework Can call JS files No Qt widgets??? Demo
- 10. Top Cube Node.js binding to WebKitGtk https://github.com/creationix/topcube Use HTML5 / CSS3 to build a GUI for Node apps Demo
- 11. For Phone Apps IOS: Nimblekit (http://nimblekit.com) et al. Cross-platform Titanium (http://appcelerator.com)
- 12. Summary The GTK tools seem clunky and broken Qt options need more investigation Node.js with a GUI – might be cool Stick with C++, Python etc bindings for desktop Use Java, C++, Objective-C or HTML5 for Phones The search continues...