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NW.js Essentials

By : Benoit

4.8 (5)

NW.js Essentials

4.8 (5)

By: Benoit

Overview of this book

If you are an experienced Node.js developer who wants to create amazing desktop applications using NW.js, this is the book for you. Prior knowledge of HTML5, jQuery, and CSS is assumed.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Meet NW.js

1. Meet NW.js

NW.js under the hood

Features and drawbacks of NW.js

Downloading and installing NW.js

Development tools

Writing and running your first "Hello World" app

Summary

2. NW.js Native UI APIs

2. NW.js Native UI APIs

The App API – the core of your applications

The Window API – working with windows on NW.js

The Screen API – screen geometry functions

The Menu API – handling window and context menus

File dialogs – opening and saving files

Opening files through file dragging

The Tray API – hide your application in plain sight

The Clipboard API – accessing the system clipboard

The Shell API – platform-dependent desktop functions

Summary

3. Leveraging the Power of Node.js

3. Leveraging the Power of Node.js

Routing and templating in NW.js

Node.js global and process objects

The window object

Using NW.js' main module

Handling paths in NW.js

NW.js context issues

Working with Node.js modules

Summary

4. Data Persistence Solutions and Other Browser Web APIs

4. Data Persistence Solutions and Other Browser Web APIs

Data persistence solutions

XMLHttpRequest and BLOBs

Handling media files

Shedding some light on security issues

The Web Notifications API

Summary

5. Let's Put It All Together

5. Let's Put It All Together

Let's get started!

A matter of style

The HTML5 skeleton

Let's dive deep into the application logic

The application layer

The NativeUI layer

Summary

6. Packaging Your Application for Distribution

6. Packaging Your Application for Distribution

The manifest file

The general logic behind the packaging procedure

Packaging NW.js applications for Mac OS X

Packaging NW.js applications for Microsoft Windows

Packaging NW.js applications for Linux

Securing your source code

About NW.js application licensing

Summary

7. Automated Packaging Tools

7. Automated Packaging Tools

Web2Executable

node-webkit-builder and grunt-node-webkit-builder

generator-node-webkit

Summary

8. Let's Debug Your Application

8. Let's Debug Your Application

Remote debugging

The DevTools API

Live reloading NW.js

Troubleshooting common issues

Summary

9. Taking Your Application to the Next Level

9. Taking Your Application to the Next Level

NW.js boilerplates

Development ideas

Resources and tutorials

Summary

Index

Index

Customer Reviews

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Troubleshooting common issues

In Chapter 1, Meet NW.js, we saw how to fix the libudev.so.0 issue, but there are a few other common issues addressed in the NW.js Wiki page:

Audio issues: This might depend on using nonfree media formats, such as MP3; check Chapter 4, Data Persistence Solutions and Others Browser Web APIs, for more information on the subject.
Video issues: Your video card might be blacklisted; in that case, run NW.js by passing the --ignore-gpu-blacklist attribute inside the chromium-args object in the manifest file. If it still does not work, it might be due to the lack of a DLL library; try copying d3dx9_43.dll and d3dcompiler_43.dll from the Chrome installer.
DevTools are not showing: As stated previously, DevTools are run on a local instanced server. Proxy settings or custom host configurations might interfere with their visualization.
JavaScript blocks CSS animations: JavaScript and CSS animations run inside the same thread. You can change this behavior by adding the --enable...

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