Nativefier is bonkers
#npm#electron#music#app
Dave Parr

Dave Parr @daveparr

About: Data-scientist who loves to use #datascienceforgood, especially in ecology, energy and the environment. Bonsai, gardening, bikes and music when I'm not at a keyboard.

Location:
Cardiff, Wales
Joined:
Mar 29, 2019

Nativefier is bonkers

Publish Date: Jun 26 '20
6 0

I made an electron app in 4 lines...

nativefier "http://musicforprogramming.net/" -n "musicforprogramming"
cd musicforprogramming-linux-x64/
sudo chmod +x musicforprogramming
./musicforprogramming
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Motivation

I like music, but don't like music in browser tabs. Basically because i have it open all the time, I want to find and control it easily, and I don't want it cluttering up an area that might be soley focused on work.

I discovered some neat apps for google play, and wanted to see if there was one for my other go to, musicforprogramming. There wasn't, so I just casually googled how to convert a page into an electron app and OMFG!

Solution

GitHub logo nativefier / nativefier

Make any web page a desktop application

Note: Nativefier is unmaintained, please see #1577.

Nativefier

Example of Nativefier app in the macOS dock

You want to make a native-looking wrapper for WhatsApp Web (or any web page).

nativefier 'web.whatsapp.com'
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Walkthrough animation

You're done.

Introduction

Nativefier is a command-line tool to easily create a “desktop app” for any web site with minimal fuss. Apps are wrapped by Electron (which uses Chromium under the hood) in an OS executable (.app, .exe, etc) usable on Windows, macOS and Linux.

I built this because I grew tired of having to Alt-Tab to my browser and then search through numerous open tabs when using Messenger or Whatsapp Web (HN thread). Nativefier features:

  • Automatically retrieval of app icon / name
  • Injection of custom JS & CSS
  • Many more, see the API docs or nativefier --help

Installation

Install Nativefier globally with npm install -g nativefier . Requirements:

  • macOS 10.13+ / Windows / Linux
  • Node.js ≥ 16.9…
View on GitHub

This post and this one helped iron out some kinks and now I can launch programming music right from my VS code terminal!

vs code and an electron app of musicforprogramming made with nativefier

Extra credit 

alias musicforprogramming="~/Dev/musicforprogramming-linux-x64/musicforprogramming
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