headless version

[megablue]

It would be great that if node-webkit are made into headless version...

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[Mithgol]

You mean, like, the same Node.js engine and API, but without any browser-alike HTML+CSS interfaces?

But that's what original Node.js is. Maybe you should just get it instead of node-webkit then.

[tommoor]

Sounds like you're looking for www.phantomjs.org

[dhendo]

Or https://github.com/deanmao/node-chimera/

[ronward]

I would very much like to see a headless option for node-webkit.
And yes I know that is like phantomjs, but phantomjs does not have the nodejs integration that node-webkit has.
Also it can them mean just the one code base and not having to testing to see which environment you are running under etc.
A must have feature! IMHO

[szwacz]

I didn't get the point of this feature. What exactly you are expecting out of headlessness? Why today node-webkit with hidden main window is not the solution?

[ronward]

The reason that node-webkit with just the main window hidden is not a solution is because it still expects a display (XWindow/XOrg). e.g. you cannot run it on a server because there is no display. (this is on Linux)
When I try this I get the message: Gtk-WARNING **:cannot open display
[25522:0100/000000:ERROR:zygote_linux.cc(498)] write: Broken pipe

[katanacrimson]

@ronward ...then just run node?

[ronward]

But node does not have the browser context!
What I want is more like PhantomJS (yes I know, then just use PhantomJS), but it would be very nice to have the combination of node and the browser context (e.g. node-webkit) in one. (and there may be other solution e.g. https://github.com/deanmao/node-chimera/ as mentioned above, but this would mean rewriting code or having two code bases)

[rogerwang]

This is on my plan. Before that you can use xvfb, xvnc or other X server which don't need a physical display on your server.

[ronward]

Thanks, that a very good idea that I had completely forgotten about. (used xvfb to run OpenOffice ages ago when there headless option still had some bugs)
By the way I just love the node-webkit idea/system/setup! Thanks

[kaizhu256]

+1
valid use cases for a headless node-webkit are:

1. provide automated browser testing and code coverage on a build server
2. running a web-scraper on a server

[edwardchanjw]

headless should help develop background apps?
or
We can set show to false in the manifest of your application with similar purpose?

[tommoor]

To me this dilutes the projects aims. Phantomjs does absolutely fine for 99% of purposes.

[Mithgol]

I was the first here to point to another project that looks like a headless node-webkit, but today I myself encountered a perfectly valid case for using a headless node-webkit — a case where nothing else would suffice.

That's Travis CI testing of a Node.js addon-containing module. There's no other way to test if a module runs on node-webkit; the module has to be built by nw-gyp and run on node-webkit to see what happens.

And, almost like @ronward said above, I saw precisely the following:

node-pre-gyp ERR! stack Error: Command failed:
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack (nw:2106): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack [2109:0100/000000:ERROR:zygote_linux.cc(478)] write: Broken pipe

You also may look into the my Travis CI log (lines 1271—1273) for an example.