Startup Image / Animation support would be nice

[kaystrobach]

Hello Guys,

as loading a packaged app takes some seconds, i would like to see a simple startup image during loading (e.g. a png or something similar).

Is there a way to achieve that?

I would have expected it as setting in the package.json file ;)

Regards
Kay

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[NRABrasil]

I want this too!

[pmaroncelli]

That would be a nice to have feature.

[pauliusuza]

I think you can easily achieve this right now using two application windows: the first windows to load is chrome-less and contains only a splash image and an asynchronous loader for your assets and main application code for the second window.

You show the main application window when all assets are loaded and DOM of the main application window is ready.

Will try this later today.

[kaystrobach]

mhmm, not exactly what i want ;)

I mean sth. like this:

1. click build app.exe (or move zip on nw.exe).
2. unpack package.json get image
3. unpack show image
4. unpack all
5. launch app, now i can show the window you suggested ;)
6. lauch main app

The timeframe between step 1 and 3 should be less than a half second.
The timeframe between 1 and 5 / 6 can be a minute or more with big applications zip files ;) .

[pauliusuza]

yes, if unpack is causing the delay it makes sense. In my case it's the js pre-processing that's causing majority of the delay

[kaystrobach]

super, is there any chance to get this implemented?

[zcbenz]

I'll implement it in v0.3.4.

[kaystrobach]

thanks in advance :D

[rogerwang]

this is now likely to slip to the next version

[gavrochelegnou]

any chance to see this splashscreen stuff soon ?
Thanks a lot !

[sindresorhus]

Agh, please don't add this... Splash screens is a huge annoyance to users. OSes already have built-in ways to show when an app is loading, eg OS X with bouncing dock icon.

[kaystrobach]

not all os show that fast and reliant.

the splash was never intended as a must, but is really sensefull as first reaction during loading a big application. One Application of mine has about 20MB of JavaScript + Images and other stuff, so the startup takes a while and a splash was requested by the user ;D

[sindresorhus]

splash was requested by the user

There could be one vocal user that wants it and thousands that don't.

[kaystrobach]

You simply do not catch the point!

The feature I request is to have a startup screen, if the developer want's it!
I do not want any enforcement to have a splash screen.
I also never asked to force developers to implement a splash screen!

So please stop complaining, do not use this feature and there should be no noticeable change for you! The discussion is senseless! - This is the last answer you get from me!

[sindresorhus]

I'm just giving you a users perspective on it. I have no say in what gets implemented or not. I just feel there are more important features that could be added than those which will degrade the user experience when used.

[kaystrobach]

ok, than sorry.

i had up to 30 secs of loading time, and my users asked me if the application dies during startup, as windows does not show any good indicator, which states, that the application is still loading 💃

So from my perspective the splash screen is an improvement for the usability.

I also agree to your opinion, for the case, that the application can technically start instantly. If possible loading should be as fast as possible, but the user should also get an idea on how long loading will take.

[iondisc]

Has any progress been made on this option? I too have an app that takes some time to load and my client would like some indication that something is happening so their users don't just keep clicking till something happens.

[ShivaanKeldon]

I vote for that too. A stratup image would be great for my game "launch time" ^^

[bendi]

I have the same problem - my zipped app has smth around 10MB and until it's unzipped nothing happens, no indicator is shown under windows, so a splash screen or anything to show user that application is starting would be nice.

[katanacrimson]

-1 - if the user is concerned if the application is starting, they can check a task manager, ps aux, or any number of process listings.

[iondisc]

Damianb, do you really think most "average" users know of such things, or have the patience?

[katanacrimson]

Many are patient enough for applications to load, yes. Please stop with the passive-aggressive behavior.

[iondisc]

My apologies if I came across "passive-aggresive" damianb, I was genuinely curious if you believed in what you had suggested. Personally I disagree with you, but that's my opinion as I don't currently have data at hand to support it so let's not argue over it.

I would rather discuss the issue that some of these apps can take a long time to load with NO "apparent" indication that anything is happening. Rather than ignore the user experience and hope they know how to find out if anything is happening, risk losing their attention all together or worse frustrate them, I would like to take action to make their experience better.

I believe we need a solution that provides A) Some indication that the app is loading and B) A splash screen to brand your app.

[kevsmt]

This is actually does not need an argument, this should or have built-in upon building node-webkit. Every Enterprise or how simple it is and it contains lots of unpacking, splash or branding is always an option.

[kaystrobach]

as it should not be a must, i can't see, why someone is fighting this FEATURE. All my customers where is used node-webkit asked for any indicator during the loading of the Application.

[YurySolovyov]

why not just provide some lightweight startup page with loading indicator, and load heavy resorurces async?

[kaystrobach]

take a look here, it's the unpacking, which causes the delay.

#151 (comment)

[gavrochelegnou]

because :

• even if our first page is very light, node-webkit can be very slow to load for heavy .nw/.app files.
• it would be a huge pita to handle correctly from html/js code ...

[YurySolovyov]

ok, got it, i think it could be possible to implement it simmilar to how window icon is done.

also, api for displaying some text over splash image would be also nice, but this is optional.

[tocttou]

+1 for the splash screen. More than 3 years for this issue and still not solved!

[nofear87]

+1 for splashscreen

[remss]

Stop using package.nw then your nwjs will start very fast.
By the way Electron does not have this issue with their uncompressed asar archive, so maybe nwjs should do the same...

[nofear87]

I have packed it with Enigma VM. The Problem are the mass of files in node modules. For example when using emailjs.

[pablozandona]

+1

[kaystrobach]

I kust switches to electron becuse of this ...

[angularchobo]

+1 for splash screen

With a 300mb app (nwjs 0.17.4) loading time on Win7 x64 is ~30-35 seconds even when my zip file is uncompressed. This amounts to a horrible user experience.

Splash screen is a super simple solution to a problem many people have had for apparently 4 years and people who don't need it can simply not use it.

[armoret]

+1

Splash screen is still a useful and needed feature that help users to wait during application startup/unpacking/loading/rendering : just consider it is well used by Microsoft for Office programs!

[offshore]

Another +1.

[uiliw]

passed 4 years and nothing, for those who are looking for an (better) alternative here it is: http://electron.atom.io/

[wisniewski94]

+1 for the splash screen during unpacking

[kaystrobach]

Hi Keshav, please read #151 (comment) have fun ...

[blaremc]

+1

[jobeninc]

I also would like to identify a justifiable reason this feature should be implemented.

Factors outside of our control require our NW application to be delivered on a network share drive and executed by the customers on windows computers directly from the network drive. Each customer has varying levels of connectivity and can take a long time for a basic nw.js Hello World application without compression to show the first sign of something happening. Unfriendly customer policies do not allow users to copy the entire to their local computer to execute locally.

I created a quick experiment to highlight the issue for field deployments of the absolute minimum NW.js application. This assumes no unpacking is required

Starting with the NWJS-v0.23.3-win-x64.zip download, I added the following index.html file and removed unused *.pak files from the locales folder.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
We are using node.js.
</body>
</html>

The resulting application is ~127MB in size.

It appears that at least the (nw.exe & nw.dll) ~94MB must be downloaded in its entirety before any window is displayed.

Measured on a 100 Mbit/s LAN, the average time before displaying the hello world window was approximately 10 seconds.

Measured on the same LAN connected via wireless, the average time before displaying the hello world window was approximately 60 seconds.

These time periods would not be a problem if a splash screen was first loaded to indicate that the application is loading. Is there is plan to breakup the the application components in a manner that could support downloading the minimum to display a splash screen prior to loading the rest of the nw components and the main application? Otherwise, does anyone have a workaround for displaying an external splash screen via a sister application that is removed after the NW app is loaded?

Thanks. BTW, great work on NW. It is awesome and your work is much appreciated.

[Xsmael]

+1 for the splash screen verry handy !

[Patrique]

+1 for the splash screen

[navjotdhanawat]

+1

[Xsmael]

+1

[mrfenix]

+1

[geolffreym]

spash!!!! screeen!!!

[freeyland]

+1

[ernanielyjr]

+1

[aggregate1166877]

+1

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[i-MaxProfit]

Try to use this one https://github.com/nwutils/nw-splash-screen-example

[ayushmanchhabra]

https://github.com/arthurits/SplashScreen
With a few changes to the source and compiling as Node Native Addon, this looks promising.