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I am developing an app using nodejs and express.
I want to export it as a package with node-webkit.
How can I start server and run app with it ?
209
I am working on learning this myself. Here are the basics for converting an express app to a node webkit app.
I will assume that you have a node.js app with two modules installed. The first being express.js and the second some template engine. I am using handlebars so I will use it for this example.
I will also assume the app you want to convert is the simplest one possible, in short I will assume you are using express to do two things - run a server and respond to a single route that renders a view file
Step 1.
Download node webkit: http://nwjs.io/
Step 2.
Unzip it
Step 3.
Open up the console and cd into the newly created folder (I will call this directory app-parent from here on out). Once you are there - run this command:
npm install express
When this is done run:
npm install express-handlebars
Step 4:
In app-parent create two additional folders. One named resources and the other named views. Also in app-parent create a file called package.json.
Copy the following code into package.json
{
"name": "app",
"main": "resources/index.html"
}
Step 5:
Go to the resources folder and create a file named index.html. Inside of this copy the following code:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title></title>
</head>
<!--______________________________________________________BEGIN APP-->
<body>
<script>
</script>
<script>
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var expressHbs = require('express-handlebars');
app.engine('hbs', expressHbs({
extname: 'hbs'
}));
app.set('view engine', 'hbs');
app.get("/", function(req, res) {
res.render("index", {
item: "weeeeeeeee"
})
})
app.listen("3000", function(err) {
if (err) {
console.log("server is not working");
} else {
console.log("Server is working on 3000");
}
})
window.location.href = 'http://localhost:3000';
</script>
</body>
<!--______________________________________________________END APP-->
</html>
Step 7.
Go to the views folder in app-parent and create a new file called index.hbs. Inside this file copy the following code.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title></title>
</head>
<!--______________________________________________________BEGIN APP-->
<body>
<p>Oink</p>
{{item}}
</body>
<!--______________________________________________________END APP-->
</html>
Final step.
Inside app-parent click the file named nw.exe. Your app should launch.
DONE
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