Generate Desktop Apps

[chrisvire]

There is still a need for distributing Electron-based apps for desktop in situations where PWA install is not an option.

Nativefier can generate an Electron app based on a website (http or file url). It uses electron-packager to create the Windows, Mac, or Linux application folder. There are several options for creating a distributable.

For Linux, we should look at snap or flatpak.

For Mac, it should be notarized. We can look at using Circle CI to run macOS tasks remotely. We have done research with appbuilder-ci-ios to sign iOS apps remotely. Something similar should be doable with Notarization.

[chrisvire]

@aaronsedna:

Mac Q: I assume we will need separate Notarization certificates for for different apps. We could use the “store” concept that builds the configuration of certificate and publishing location.

Windows: Q: What format of Windows Installer to use? Squirrel, Wix MSI, appX? Any of them? Q: Do we need to sign the windows install package?

General Q: Desktop apps will be published to a website, right? Is it different from the PWA?