Show HN: Nativefier – Wrap any web page natively

Re:Show HN: Nativefier – Wrap any web page natively by katabasis on Wednesday January 20, 2016 @01:08PM (#10940041)

This is amazing. I work in digital publishing at an art museum, and we are creating digital books as static HTML/CSS/JS files which rely on client-side interactivity for most features.

Some people have asked about getting a desktop version of these books which they could download locally (scholars doing fieldwork, etc). I knew something like this was possible using Electron, but I figured I'd have to build it from scratch if I wanted it.

Instead I just pointed this script at the beta version of our latest project[1] and the project built flawlessly in under a minute.

Nice work! I know that the web as a platform has its problems, but it is the only truly universal runtime we have right now, and tools like this help realize this potential more fully.

One question: is there a way to package pre-built copies as .dmg or .exe files so that non-technical users can download an app that is ready to go, without having to run the build script themselves?

[1]: http://gettypubs.github.io/Terracottas/

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Re:Show HN: Nativefier – Wrap any web page natively by skewedlines on Wednesday January 20, 2016 @01:29PM (#10940205)

I'm glad you like it! I think such an installer feature could be added in by integrating with https://github.com/loopline-systems/electron-builder, I'll see if I have time in the next few days to add this in before school starts.

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Re:Show HN: Nativefier – Wrap any web page natively by icebraining on Wednesday January 20, 2016 @03:02PM (#10940917)

This doesn't seem to create offline copies of the webapps, at least assuming by the examples given (maps.google.com and medium.com), which would be quite useless as static apps.

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