standalone web application

Question

Is there way to run web application as standalone desktop application? Could be web application written using PHP, MySQL and Apache converted to standalone application which meets following requirements:

1. Application should be called as http://myapp.localhost.
2. Application should have desktop icon which directly opens browser with application's URL.
3. Source code of web application should be hidden from users.
4. Installation for end user must be as easy as possible.

Now I do steps 1-2 using xampp and manually creating shortcut. I was interested in some wrapper, installer which do above steps automatically. But I have no idea about 3rd step.

Answer 1

Regarding item 3, see Can you "compile" PHP code?. This would allow you to develop in PHP and deploy the application via an installer.

There are several installer packages which would allow you to automate these steps, depending on your development environment.