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Show HN: WebShell – Bundle web apps to native OS X app

27 points by djyde 11y ago

effinggames 11y ago
Cool, reminds me of fluid. I've been looking for a new web app packager since fluid stopped working w/ google docs.
- mikewhy 11y ago
  I tried making a replacement for Fluid using Electron. CPU usage isn't ideal, context menus wouldn't work, keyboard focus was an issue. And even with those issues I still use it because SSB apps are that useful. Excited to check this out.
djyde 11y ago
Hi, I am Randy, the author of WebShell. I think a lot of web app need to be an native app more than a browser tab. And they were all responsive enough to be contained in a WebView. But repeating making new projects for each web app was frustrated. This is the reason why I make WebShell. It can help you make the web app you like to be a native OS X app. Another frustrating thing for me is I did not even know how Cocoa framework works and did not know how to write OS X application. I learn swift-lang and learn about the concepts of Cocoa two days and then made WebShell. So I hope that everyone can make web app to be native app even though you are not (Cocoa) developer. The thing you need is only an Xcode. I build the first WebShell-based app for JS Bin. You could have a glance of it performance. https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-26c400bf436fb0f55e9b/JSBin.zip https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...
- djyde 11y ago
  fix url https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-2dcb9795b04eb54e8b45/JSBin.zip https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...
techdragon 11y ago
I was a huge user of single site browsers... when I was on OSX. Now I miss them, but I just couldn't live with the random crashing. Are there any good SSB tools for Linux, or even better, for FreeBSD, as someone else mentioned, Electron just does not cut it at all for this. SSB and the Omni Group software are the only things I really miss from OSX :-/
- sandebert 11y ago
  I'm on Debian and I simply use Chromium for that. Here's an example of how it works: chromium --user-data-dir=/custom/webapp/dir/ --app=http://example.com http://example.com Works just fine, I can recommend it. Note that you need to create the custom dir yourself, it's where Chromium will store everything related to that instance.

27 points by djyde 11y ago

effinggames 11y ago

Cool, reminds me of fluid. I've been looking for a new web app packager since fluid stopped working w/ google docs.

mikewhy 11y ago
I tried making a replacement for Fluid using Electron. CPU usage isn't ideal, context menus wouldn't work, keyboard focus was an issue. And even with those issues I still use it because SSB apps are that useful. Excited to check this out.

djyde 11y ago

Hi, I am Randy, the author of WebShell. I think a lot of web app need to be an native app more than a browser tab. And they were all responsive enough to be contained in a WebView. But repeating making new projects for each web app was frustrated. This is the reason why I make WebShell. It can help you make the web app you like to be a native OS X app. Another frustrating thing for me is I did not even know how Cocoa framework works and did not know how to write OS X application. I learn swift-lang and learn about the concepts of Cocoa two days and then made WebShell. So I hope that everyone can make web app to be native app even though you are not (Cocoa) developer. The thing you need is only an Xcode. I build the first WebShell-based app for JS Bin. You could have a glance of it performance. https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-26c400bf436fb0f55e9b/JSBin.zip https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...

djyde 11y ago
fix url https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-2dcb9795b04eb54e8b45/JSBin.zip https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...

techdragon 11y ago

I was a huge user of single site browsers... when I was on OSX. Now I miss them, but I just couldn't live with the random crashing. Are there any good SSB tools for Linux, or even better, for FreeBSD, as someone else mentioned, Electron just does not cut it at all for this. SSB and the Omni Group software are the only things I really miss from OSX :-/

sandebert 11y ago
I'm on Debian and I simply use Chromium for that. Here's an example of how it works: chromium --user-data-dir=/custom/webapp/dir/ --app=http://example.com http://example.com Works just fine, I can recommend it. Note that you need to create the custom dir yourself, it's where Chromium will store everything related to that instance.