
Show HN: WebShell – Bundle web apps to native OS X app - djyde
https://github.com/djyde/WebShell
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djyde
Hi, I am Randy, the author of WebShell.

I think a lot of web app need to be an native app more than a browser tab. And
they were all responsive enough to be contained in a WebView. But repeating
making new projects for each web app was frustrated. This is the reason why I
make WebShell. It can help you make the web app you like to be a native OS X
app.

Another frustrating thing for me is I did not even know how Cocoa framework
works and did not know how to write OS X application. I learn swift-lang and
learn about the concepts of Cocoa two days and then made WebShell. So I hope
that everyone can make web app to be native app even though you are not
(Cocoa) developer. The thing you need is only an Xcode.

I build the first WebShell-based app for JS Bin. You could have a glance of it
performance.
[https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...](https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-26c400bf436fb0f55e9b/JSBin.zip)

~~~
djyde
fix url
[https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged...](https://github.com/djyde/WebShell/releases/download/untagged-2dcb9795b04eb54e8b45/JSBin.zip)

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techdragon
I was a huge user of single site browsers... when I was on OSX.

Now I miss them, but I just couldn't live with the random crashing.

Are there any good SSB tools for Linux, or even better, for FreeBSD, as
someone else mentioned, Electron just does not cut it at all for this. SSB and
the Omni Group software are the only things I really miss from OSX :-/

~~~
sandebert
I'm on Debian and I simply use Chromium for that. Here's an example of how it
works:

chromium --user-data-dir=/custom/webapp/dir/
\--app=[http://example.com](http://example.com)

Works just fine, I can recommend it. Note that you need to create the custom
dir yourself, it's where Chromium will store everything related to that
instance.

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effinggames
Cool, reminds me of fluid. I've been looking for a new web app packager since
fluid stopped working w/ google docs.

~~~
mikewhy
I tried making a replacement for Fluid using Electron. CPU usage isn't ideal,
context menus wouldn't work, keyboard focus was an issue. And even with those
issues I still use it because SSB apps are that useful. Excited to check this
out.

