What you should know before starting node-webkit (opens in new tab)

I like node-webkit.

One of the ironies about the "Write once, Run many" mantra for HTML5 is that it's mostly applied to phones, where the runtime presents numerous challenges. On the desktop, however, HTML5 runtimes are faster and more feature-rich, so this is really where the portable aspect of HTML5 can excel. Adding Node to the mix makes it powerful too, going beyond regular browser capabilities.

We used node-webkit with a portable launcher (to contain registry entries and keep settings with the app on Windows) to make 2048 Portable over at PortableApps.com: http://portableapps.com/apps/games/2048-portable

It was a bit of an experiment to see how well it worked... and IF it worked. We compressed some of node-webkit with UPX to shrink it down without compressing all of it and sacrificing performance. It works pretty well though is a bit buggy. We already have a couple web games that are planning to use it to reach a wider audience (since we have a few millions users).

I've tried migrating a pair of fairly lightweight desktop applications to node-webkit from Realbasic/Xojo (which is essentially a cross-platform Visual Basic, only nicer) with some success (in once case the new application is far faster, while I haven't finished the second, but so far so good).

This is the first (simpler) application (really of interest only to Cheetah 3D users).

http://loewald.com/c3dbook/Misc-Resources/C3D-Buddy/

There's no attempt to produce a "native" UI (indeed, it's not using any frameworks) but it works very well.

I'd like to see a node-webkit-based IDE for creating node-webkit applications (I've considered trying to write one, but I do NOT have the time).

I've done a bit of node-webkit but I what I really didn't like was the speed at which a node-webkit app launches itself. It's pretty slow.

I've built a few apps using node-webkit for myself and, being a web developer, found it pretty awesome. One of the challenges that I think atom-shell handles better is background tasks/jobs. In node-webkit, my understanding is if you want to be able to background tasks using a node worker (not a webworker), then you have to bundle another node runtime with your app and use node's execute/spawn. This works OK, but bundling another version of node is kind of a pain. atom-shell works this way out of the box which is awesome if you need it.

Both projects are great ways of developing apps using web technologies though.

Is node-webkit going to be renamed to node-blink at some point? It seems misleading to continue using WebKit in the name when it's not been based on WebKit for quite some time.