ContainerJS provides an abstraction layer over multiple HTML5 containers (OpenFin, Electron, Browser), that follows the Symphony Desktop APIs. For more details, refer to the confluence page for this working group.
The following describes how to create a simple 'Hello World' application and run it with OpenFin and Electron. The current setup process is not very tidy, expect this to improve over time!
The first step is to install all of the dependencies of this project. From the root folder, run the following:
npm install
Now you can start creating your app. From within an empty folder, add a minimal HTML file called index.js:
<!doctype html>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<body>
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
<script src="containerjs-api.js"></script>
<script>
ssf.app.ready()
.then(() => {
new Notification('Hello World');
});
</script>
</body>This file uses the ssf API to handle the container ready promise, then creates a notification. Notice that it loads the containerjs-api.js script, which provides the client-side APIs (within OpenFin).
Within the same folder, add the following app.json manifest file:
{
"startup_app": {
"name": "Hello World",
"url": "http://localhost:5000/index.html",
"uuid": "hello-world",
"autoShow": true
},
"runtime": {
"version": "stable"
}
}The manifest tells the container which URL to load initially.
The container loads HTML applications over HTTP, so in order to run this demo application you need to start a local server. If you don't already have a preferred tool, you can use the node http-server package:
npm install --global http-server
http-server -p 5000
This starts a server on port 5000.
First copy the contents of the packages/api-openfin/dist folder contents into the folder where your app is located. This provides the client-side API to your app.
Next, install the OpenFin CLI tool:
npm install --global openfin-cli
Finally, launch the app:
openfin --launch --config app.json
You should now see the Hello World application!
In order to run the same application with Electron, you need to install the CLI tool which is part of this project. From within the packages/api-electron folder, run the following:
npm install --global --ignore-scripts .
This installs the ssf-electron command line tool as a global npm package.
You can now launch the app with the following command:
ssf-electron app.json
You should now see exactly the same app running within Electron.
For details on the progress and roadmap, see the wiki pages
This project is a mono-repo, i.e. multiple distinct projects within the same Git repository. This project uses Lerna to manage the dependencies between these projects and their release process.
To get started, run the following from the project root:
npm install
This will install Lerna and run lerna bootstrap, which runs npm install on all the sub-projects, and links any cross dependencies.
To run each project, use
npm run browser
npm run electron
npm run openfin
or refer to the demo projects