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Show HN: Messenger.com Native

27 points by imd23 12y ago

msoad 12y ago
Does it have notifications?
- therein 12y ago
  Looking at the code, it doesn't other than the audio that Facebook plays within the webview. That's pretty much the entirety of the code anyway: <webview id="wv1" src="https://www.messenger.com/login" https://www.messenger.com/login" partition=""></webview> Definitely a needed project, though.
mashlol 12y ago
Is this on npm? You should add it if it isn't!
- imd23 12y ago
  Should I? I don't know why, but I feel it doesn't feets npm. Why would someone want to get this from npm?
xzion 12y ago
Mouse doesn't seem to work correctly on win64, left click just selects the window and right click gives standard minimize/maximize/close options. Also there's two scroll bars on the right hand side, where there should be zero. I was able to tab down to the login form and enter credentials, but just got served with the "Please try again later" page, same as I'm getting in the browser at the moment. But thanks!
Spiritus 12y ago
There's this as well (OS X only): https://github.com/rsms/fb-mac-messenger https://github.com/rsms/fb-mac-messenger I haven't actually tried it myself yet though...
lechevalierd3on 12y ago
"Native" it is a webview...
Artemis2 12y ago
I really dig the app, but there's a few features that won't be trivial to implement to get the feel of a native app: - Native notifications - Actual window (to replace the "dragging any part of the screen drags the window" and to minimize the app) - Ability to hide the app away by just closing it Also I have a big scrollbar on the right, no matter the size of the window (I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro Retina). Keep up the good work!
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  - Native notifications I've noticed Firefox (maybe just developer edition) asks for permission to provide notifications on some sites (specifically Udacity). I have been meaning to see what those are, but I assumed it was native-ish notifications. So maybe that would be possible to implement in a web app, I dunno.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- joeyspn 12y ago
  I implemented all of this building a whatsapp desktop version of whatsapp web (also with nw.js) and it is working fine... It's really simple to do. Slack is also a nw.js app if you haven't noticed, so it is the proof that you can get a near-native behavior... =) I haven't uploaded the repo cos I fear backlash from facebook even if it is just a wrapper... Remember that the guy that built WhatsAPI/yowsup has been banned from fb and whatsapp...
mts_ 12y ago
I've been using Goofy for a couple of months: http://www.goofyapp.com/ http://www.goofyapp.com/ This project looks super nice, but native notifications would be nice.
- kiliankoe 12y ago
  What would be different here to the way that Goofy does it? Goofy handles notifications through it's wrapper and sends them over to the notification center, thus being native notifications. The rest is all a webview, for both of these projects.
  - mts_ 12y ago
    Correct, the main differentiator would be the notifications and the additional styling on top of the web view. Goofy was created before messenger.com and had a bit of extra styling afaik.
samat 12y ago
Maybe I am dumb, but how should I run it on Mac? Can't find an executable, only .exe files :(
- samat 12y ago
  Okay, changed Gruntfile, there was an error saying it's Windows on Mac.
  - clooth 12y ago
    I created a pull request for this fix as well.
Coxa 12y ago
This is just the source code from messenger.com plugged into a node-webkit and in no way "native".
- derefr 12y ago
  It's "native" in about the same sense that a PhoneGap app is a "native" app.
captn3m0 12y ago
To the mac guys in here, I thought that Fluid[0] was used a lot on the OSX world for creating chromeless apps for websites. Isn't that the case anymore? [0]: http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/
- joeyspn 12y ago
  Fluidapp browser engine is old and doesn't support things like WebRTC, Web Workers, or modern HTML5 specs. NW.js is based on Chromium so it is basically riding the state-of-the-art wave... you can even pass chrome-flags during compilation for building experimental features.. It's much more powerful... I'm halfway of building a nw.js FOSS version of fluidapp that acts as wrapper for modern webapps. =)
  - captn3m0 12y ago
    Please don't keep it limited to osx. I'd love for it to be available on Linux as well. Should be doable since nw.js has nice cross-platform support.

27 points by imd23 12y ago

msoad 12y ago

Does it have notifications?

therein 12y ago
Looking at the code, it doesn't other than the audio that Facebook plays within the webview. That's pretty much the entirety of the code anyway: <webview id="wv1" src="https://www.messenger.com/login" https://www.messenger.com/login" partition=""></webview> Definitely a needed project, though.

mashlol 12y ago

Is this on npm? You should add it if it isn't!

imd23 12y ago
Should I? I don't know why, but I feel it doesn't feets npm. Why would someone want to get this from npm?

xzion 12y ago

Mouse doesn't seem to work correctly on win64, left click just selects the window and right click gives standard minimize/maximize/close options. Also there's two scroll bars on the right hand side, where there should be zero. I was able to tab down to the login form and enter credentials, but just got served with the "Please try again later" page, same as I'm getting in the browser at the moment. But thanks!

Spiritus 12y ago

There's this as well (OS X only): https://github.com/rsms/fb-mac-messenger https://github.com/rsms/fb-mac-messenger I haven't actually tried it myself yet though...

lechevalierd3on 12y ago

"Native" it is a webview...

Artemis2 12y ago

I really dig the app, but there's a few features that won't be trivial to implement to get the feel of a native app: - Native notifications - Actual window (to replace the "dragging any part of the screen drags the window" and to minimize the app) - Ability to hide the app away by just closing it Also I have a big scrollbar on the right, no matter the size of the window (I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro Retina). Keep up the good work!

SwellJoe 12y ago
- Native notifications I've noticed Firefox (maybe just developer edition) asks for permission to provide notifications on some sites (specifically Udacity). I have been meaning to see what those are, but I assumed it was native-ish notifications. So maybe that would be possible to implement in a web app, I dunno.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
joeyspn 12y ago
I implemented all of this building a whatsapp desktop version of whatsapp web (also with nw.js) and it is working fine... It's really simple to do. Slack is also a nw.js app if you haven't noticed, so it is the proof that you can get a near-native behavior... =) I haven't uploaded the repo cos I fear backlash from facebook even if it is just a wrapper... Remember that the guy that built WhatsAPI/yowsup has been banned from fb and whatsapp...

mts_ 12y ago

I've been using Goofy for a couple of months: http://www.goofyapp.com/ http://www.goofyapp.com/ This project looks super nice, but native notifications would be nice.

kiliankoe 12y ago
What would be different here to the way that Goofy does it? Goofy handles notifications through it's wrapper and sends them over to the notification center, thus being native notifications. The rest is all a webview, for both of these projects.
- mts_ 12y ago
  Correct, the main differentiator would be the notifications and the additional styling on top of the web view. Goofy was created before messenger.com and had a bit of extra styling afaik.

samat 12y ago

Maybe I am dumb, but how should I run it on Mac? Can't find an executable, only .exe files :(

samat 12y ago
Okay, changed Gruntfile, there was an error saying it's Windows on Mac.
- clooth 12y ago
  I created a pull request for this fix as well.

Coxa 12y ago

This is just the source code from messenger.com plugged into a node-webkit and in no way "native".

derefr 12y ago
It's "native" in about the same sense that a PhoneGap app is a "native" app.

captn3m0 12y ago

To the mac guys in here, I thought that Fluid[0] was used a lot on the OSX world for creating chromeless apps for websites. Isn't that the case anymore? [0]: http://fluidapp.com/ http://fluidapp.com/

joeyspn 12y ago
Fluidapp browser engine is old and doesn't support things like WebRTC, Web Workers, or modern HTML5 specs. NW.js is based on Chromium so it is basically riding the state-of-the-art wave... you can even pass chrome-flags during compilation for building experimental features.. It's much more powerful... I'm halfway of building a nw.js FOSS version of fluidapp that acts as wrapper for modern webapps. =)
- captn3m0 12y ago
  Please don't keep it limited to osx. I'd love for it to be available on Linux as well. Should be doable since nw.js has nice cross-platform support.