Add Android Support [$50]

[subtleGradient]

Yes.

There is a $50 open bounty on this issue. Add to the bounty at Bountysource.

[subtleGradient]

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/AndroidBuildInstructions

https://github.com/paddybyers/anode

Epicness, this'd haz it

[zcbenz]

It's possible to provide an Android port of node-webkit, but I don't have plan for that in near future, supporting all three major desktop platforms has already taken all of my time.

[sequoiar]

In case Chrome need V8 Android bridge, it should be done there.

at least three things to do:

1. porting Chrome's V8 to node.js.
2. cross compile node.js with Android NDK
3. poring what else in content-shell to Android

[donaldpipowitch]

If it's technically possible that would be awesome. Could game developers even use WebGL on Android with this way?

[zcbenz]

Not sure, I'm not familiar with Chrome on Android.

[donaldpipowitch]

Hmm... nope. The current version of Android for Chrome doesn't support WebGL :(

[rogerwang]

@donaldpipowitch , I'm sure it will get better :)

[allencblee]

@subtleGradient, why not use Phonegap?

[donaldpipowitch]

PhoneGap neither uses V8 nor Node. It just uses the native WebView and adds some API bridges.

[donaldpipowitch]

FIY: Great news. The recent Chrome for Android Beta features WebGL hidden behind a flag: http://blog.tojicode.com/2013/01/get-webgl-working-on-android-chrome-beta.html?m=1

It would be just so sweet to get node-webkit running on an OUYA :)

[kevsmt]

This is epic if possible :)

[zhizhangchen]

Even if it's technically possible to enable node APIs on Andorid, will Google allow such an application being installed? Basically it can access all the resources in the device and user will have no way to control it.

[donaldpipowitch]

I think you would have to use the regular Android way and declare a AndroidManifest.xml to set permissions.

[Mithgol]

Meanwhile, https://github.com/paddybyers/node/wiki/Building-v0.11-for-Android

[Mithgol]

Meanwhile, the joyent/node#5514 patch has been merged into the core of Node.js.

[smolleyes]

hi

what s up with node-webkit on android ?

thx

[yapcheahshen]

FYI, here is an attempt to provide a pure javascript development environment for native Apps, by using V8 on Android and spider-monkey on iOS. http://sourceforge.net/projects/yaui/

[albi90]

Any progress on this?

[tarwin]

If it would be possible to get it working, I may be interested in paying someone (a grand or two?) to get this going. Requirements would be that it has WebGL available (ie latest Chrome).

[donaldpipowitch]

FYI: With the new JS-to-ObjC-Bridge in iOS7 it should be possible to polyfill Node on iOS, so generally it should be possible to do node-webkit on iOS7, too?

[albi90]

its definitely possible, i have just converted one of my projects from node-webkit to android using the chromium content shell for android from https://github.com/davisford/android-chromium-view doesent have nodejs but the JS bridge works so i was able to recreate the required nodejs functions in java and pass the information back over the bridge.

[jmorvan]

It would probably need a native app shell and then define a JNI to map webview's js calls to node. (in theory!)

[albi90]

You could probably modify webinos, to emulate node-webkit from what I have read its the chromium content shell smashed together with anode.

https://github.com/webinos/webinos-android

Thanks Albi90

[raitucarp]

bump

[ghost]

Very interested in html5 nodejs (node-webkit) for my new android tablet

[kenchris]

If what you care about is a full-performance Chromium fullscreen window on Android showing your web app, well then I suggest that you look into using Crosswalk (http://www.crosswalk-project.org).

If you really depend on the node.js support, well then you can stop reading here, at least for now :-)

There is even an APK generator here: https://github.com/crosswalk-project/crosswalk-apk-generator.

So what is Crosswalk and does it make sense for you? (some extracts from my upcoming article for html5hub.com)

Crosswalk brings the full performance of Blink/Chromium to web applications on all Android devices from version 4.0 onwards, as well as some additional standards-based web features requested by app developers, such as orientation lock, raw sockets, WebRTC and WebAudio and even WebGL :-)

I guess some readers know that the latest Android (4.4, KitKat) now brings a WebView based on Chrome and Blink, so why not just use that?

Well, the new WebView is only available to people running the latest major version of Android and furthermore, the performance characteristics and features differ somewhat from Chrome, depending on the Android API level used by the embedding application.

This is because the new WebView in KitKat has to match the behavior of the previous WebView to avoid breaking existing applications, which means supporting legacy features, workarounds etc. In some cases this negatively affects layout and performance. In particular canvas performance seems to be hurt and features such as WebGL are left out for now.

As Crosswalk doesn't need this compatibility, it can follow a design very similar to that of the Chrome browser, and it is in fact built on top of Chromium components such as the content module and the Blink engine which makes it blazingly fast and very standards compliant.

[ghost]

What I would like to do is: Do all my development of Android app's on the tablet (Android OS). For me this has two advantages: 1) I don't have to carry around a 4lb laptop. 2) I don't have to run an android simulator and then reconfirm its actual operation in the Android environment.
Then there is the added time of keeping the simulator in sync with the Android OS. And the publishing and transfer between the two platforms. Do I really need all of this complication?

[albi90]

Hi Guys

If you want i have the latest chromium content shell refracted into an android studio project, i cant take any credit for it, its based on Davis Fords github project (now private), but updated.

just add a javascript bridge to communicate between your java and javascript.

Thanks Albi90

[CoryGH]

Would be great to see node-webkit support for Android and iOS, it would definitely expand node.js to everywhere (already have it running as a pseudo-operating system for embedded devices by killing the window manager on a Raspberry PI, replacing X with a single-window instance of Midori and setting node.js to run automatically, same can be done with a node-webkit application but it makes it a bit harder to update than separating the node.js and web browser instances in that case).

[ghost]

I am with you on this. Want to develop browser based application for local android platform. Working on it now!

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:56 PM, CoryGH notifications@github.com wrote:

Would be great to see node-webkit support for Android and iOS, it would definitely expand node.js to everywhere (already have it running as a pseudo-operating system for embedded devices by killing the window manager on a Raspberry PI, replacing X with a single-window instance of Midori and setting node.js to run automatically, same can be done with a node-webkit application but it makes it a bit harder to update than separating the node.js and web browser instances in that case).

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/issues/94#issuecomment-40749586 .

[albi90]

Hi guys

if your looking to hax up chromium to create a native web app you can use my latest build of the chromium content shell, its the latest LKGR build 265217 so it should be stable.

just download the source and open it in android studio, this is just the raw content shell which doesn't support loading url's from the assets dir so you will need to zip your project and put some code in to extract it to external storage and set the startup url to file:///extracted_dir well thats what i do if you find a better way let me know.

Have fun

oh yeah the source url is http://squareboxdesign.net/nw/android-chromium-lkgr-rev265217.zip

[albi90]

Woops looks like i didn't re-base to the LKGR correctly the above build is a bit buggy, i will update it tonight, i will also post an example with a basic page utilizing the javascript bridge as it can be hard to work out.

[albi90]

Ok so i have updated the content shell to the latest LKGR 26609 source for the pure content shell is below: http://squareboxdesign.net/nw/android-chromium-lkgr-rev266009.zip

if you want a basic app example, see below node-webkit build (no node.js sorry) this app will extract the node-webkit\chromium\nw\src\main\assets\www content onto the external storage dir and load index.html. the current page is just a simple app that shows the total memory available, the used memory and lists any files in its external storage dir. http://squareboxdesign.net/nw/node-webkit-lkgr-rev266009.zip

it should give you a good example of how to use the JavascriptInterface on the content shell.

FYI my android development skills are not the best so i take no responsibility for any issues.

Feel free to use this code how you like, its 99% chromium source.

Thanks albi90

[hadim]

Any chance to get node-webkit working on android in future ?

[Mithgol]

@hadim The current situation is the following:

• It is possible to run the Chromium parts of node-webkit on Android, as @albi90 has demonstrated above.
• Node.js engine is somewhat portable to Android as well (especially after the joyent/node#5514 patch has been merged into the core of Node.js).
• The amalgamation of these two (which we know as node-webkit) would still require quite an effort and nobody volunteered to do that.

[hadim]

Ok at least it's clear :-)

Thank you dude !

[No9]

This might be useful :) Node on android

https://gist.github.com/modeswitch/114c9bd55d800df242a2

[albi90]

@No9 interesting gist, if we can simply compile node for android then it shouldn't be to hard to add it to the android content shell, if @zcbenz could provide an in depth breakdown on the changes made to make node work in the content shell at the DOM level i would give it a go, i believe the content shell lib between android and linux shares alot of code.

[PedroMCostaAndrade]

bump

[PedroMCostaAndrade]

@rogerwang please say something about this.. This would be the better thing that could happen to node-webkit... node.js and node-webkit are great and thanks to them, programs like PopcornTime were created!! thanks

[rogerwang]

@PedroMCostaAndrade it requires efforts and the support I get so far is not able to cope with this. Thanks

[spirodonfl]

@rogerwang: When you say "the support I get so far", do you mean fellow developers helping with the code or financial support?

[sarciszewski]

I second @spirodonfl's question and will try to find time to help out if you need code support :+1:

[PedroMCostaAndrade]

Bump @rogerwang

[sashahilton00]

bump

[jtremback]

I don't have the expertise to help with the code, but this would extremely useful for me and I'm willing to pitch in financially (modestly) for someone to do it. Crowdfunding?

[davidworkman9]

I don't know what the exact technical details but this should be doable on the chromium side, proven by the crosswalk project and porting node to android seems to be in progress.

[Mithgol]

@davidworkman9 It seems to me that the http://instantwebp2p.github.io/node-android/ project is porting Node.js not only to Android, but also from JavaScript to Java, and its intention is to provide Node-like APIs for Java applications on Android. (And it is therefore useless for the goal of launching the code of node-webkit-based applications written in JavaScript.)

[davidworkman9]

@Mithgol oh sorry, I guess you're right. I didn't look into it much, was in the node weekly newsletter this morning right above the notification for this in my inbox and thought it was quite the coincidence.

[albi90]

@Mithgol if we have the API in Java you could simply use the content shell with the js bridge, not as nice as having node tied directly into the content shell at the DOM level but would work.