Unofficial WhatsApp for Desktop (DEPRECATED)

WhatsApp for Desktop is now Whatsie! Head over to the new repository and help me make it awesome: https://github.com/Aluxian/Whatsie

Here's what's new:

• Improved performance and battery usage
• More features and better UX

Also:

• Themes & Mini Mode
• Native Notifications (with reply on OS X)
• Spell Checker & Auto Correct
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Launch on OS startup
• Automatic Updates

Note: Whatsie is still in beta, so some things may not work as expected. If you're a dev, I'd love some help! Get in touch with me and the other devs on Gitter at gitter.im/Aluxian/Whatsie

WhatsApp features

• Group chats
• Send photos & videos
• Share locations

Unofficial WhatsApp for Desktop features

• Badge with the number of notifications in the dock/taskbar (OS X and Windows)
• Auto-launch on OS startup (OS X, Windows)
• Native notifications (all platforms)l
• System tray icon (OS X, Windows)
• Open links in browser or new window
• Preferences in the right-click context menu (or menu bar for OS X, tray menu for Windows)

Build

Pre-requisites

# install gulp
npm install -g gulp

# install dependencies
npm install

• wine: If you're on OS X/Linux and want to build for Windows, you need Wine installed. Wine is required in order to set the correct icon for the exe. If you don't have Wine, you can comment out the winIco field in gulpfile.
• makensis: Required by the pack:win32 task in gulpfile to create the Windows installer.
• fpm: Required by the pack:linux{32|64}:deb tasks in gulpfile to create the Linux installers.

Quick install on OS X:

brew install wine makensis
sudo gem install fpm

OS X: pack the app in a .dmg

gulp pack:osx64

Windows: create the installer

gulp pack:win32

Linux 32/64-bit: pack the app in a .deb

gulp pack:linux{32|64}:deb

The output is in ./dist. Take a look at gulpfile.coffee for additional tasks.

TIP: use the --toolbar parameter to quickly build the app with the toolbar on. E.g. gulp build:win32 --toolbar.

TIP: use gulp build:win32 --noicon to quickly build the Windows app without the icon.

TIP: for OS X, use the run:osx64 task to build the app and run it immediately.

Note to WhatsApp

This project does not attempt to reverse engineer the WhatsApp API or attempt to reimplement any part of the WhatsApp client. Any communication between the user and WhatsApp servers is handled by WhatsApp Web itself; this is just a native wrapper for WhatsApp Web, more akin to a browser than any WhatsApp software.

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! For feature requests and bug reports please submit an issue.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Alexandru Rosianu

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.