NW.js + Vue 3 Desktop App Boilerplate

The easiest, quickest, and best option for building Desktop Apps with Vue.

100% test coverage. Vue-DevTools built in.

All you do is npm install && npm start and you got a desktop app and web app development environment with Vue-DevTools built-in.

Does this work for web or just desktop?

Both. This repo will build both for web and desktop and includes a simple this.isDesktop flag so you can add desktop specific features that won't show on the web. This repo has 100% test coverage including tests for both web and desktop builds. You could even theoretically add NativeScript-Vue into the mix and build for native mobile as well (though that is not set up in this repo).

Run npm run build and you're ready to ship/deploy: Web App, Windows Installer, OSX and Linux apps.

Technology colophon

• Vue 3 - Frontend framework
• NW.js - Desktop App runtime environment
  • Chromium 119
  • Node.js 20.7.0
• Vue-DevTools - Built in to the Chromium dev tools
• Vite - Dev Server/Bundler/App build tool
• Pinia - Global State Management
• Vue-Router - Frontend routing/navigation
• Options API - Component organizational structure
• Constants Plugin - Gives you a dedicated place to store constants in a component
• NW-Builder-Phoenix - Automated desktop builds
• ESLint - Code error prevention and stylistic consistency
  • Vue Linting
  • Accessibility Linting
  • Test Linting
  • Import Linting
• Vitest - Vite-based Unit/integration/behavioral testing
  • 100% test coverage examples
  • @vue/test-utils - Test helpers for interacting with Vue in tests
  • jest-serializer-vue-tjw - Dramatically improved snapshot formatting
  • @pinia/testing - Initialize Pinia in tests

Documentation

In all .vue components, you have access to nw, global, process, require, and the boolean isDesktop:

methods: {
  example: function () {
    if (this.isDesktop) {
      console.log('Your OS is ' + this.process.platform);
      console.log('Your AppData location is ' + this.nw.App.dataPath);
      // Sets a value on Node's global, meaning other windows have access to this data.
      this.global.cow = 'moo';
      // The contents of the current directory
      console.log(this.require('fs').readdirSync('.'));
    }
  }
}

Or even directly from the template (with some slight changes to work within the Vue context):

<div v-if="isDesktop">
  Your OS is {{ process.platform }}.
  Your AppData location is {{ nw.App.dataPath }}.
  <button @click="nw.global.cow = 'moo'">
    Clicking this button sets a value on Node's global.
    Meaning other windows have access to this data.
  </button>
  The contents of the current directory are {{ nw.require('fs').readdirSync('.') }}.
</div>

Running locally

1. Download, Fork, or Clone this repo
2. Install Volta
   • It will handle using the correct Node version based on the package.json
3. Run npm install
4. Run npm start

Lint

Uses rules in ./eslint.json

1. npm run lint to see linting errors
2. npm run fix to auto-fix linting errors (where possible)

Tests

1. npm t runs all unit tests and shows coverage output
2. npm t -- -u runs all unit tests, updating snapshots (use with care)

Building for distribution

1. npm run build:clean will delete your ./dist and ./dist-vue folders
2. npm run build:vue will build just your Vue app for web distribution (./dist-vue)
3. npm run build:nw will build just your NW.js app (./dist) for all supported platforms (Windows, OSX, Linux 32-Bit, Linux 64-Bit)
4. npm run build is your all-in-one command. It will clean out the old dist folders and build your Vue and NW.js app

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT BUILDS

They take a long time. If you do npm run build expect it to take 10-30 minutes. This can be adjusted by changing the build params in the package.json. The more platforms and build types, the longer it takes. You can also remove the --concurrent from the build:nw script to see a status of what has been completed. This will allow individual pieces to finish faster, but the entire build will take longer.

Removing Pinia

I set up Pinia in this project to save you time (and because it's amazing). If you don't need global state management for your project, you can remove Pinia by doing the following:

• Delete the /src/store folder and its contents
• Delete /src/views/PiniaDemo.vue
• Delete /tests/unit/views/PiniaDemo.test.js
• Remove the Pinia Demo RouterLink from /src/App.vue
• Remove import and route object relating to "PiniaDemo" from /src/router/index.js
• Remove the lines of code from /tests/unit/testHelpers.js that say "pinia"
• Remove the lines of code from /package.json that say "pinia"
• npm install && npm t -- -u
• git add -A && git commit -m "Removed Pinia"

Updating Vue-DevTools

At time of writing, Vue-DevTools v6 has just been released. It is a major re-write and there are many reports of it being buggy. So for now I've changed the repo to use a pinned version of the last V5 release. If you are reading this in the future, you can try changing nw-vue-devtools-5 to nw-vue-devtools-prebuilt. The "prebuilt" dependency will download the latest Vue-DevTools from the Chromium Web Store and then patch it to work in NW.js. Make sure to update all references from nw-vue-devtools-5 to nw-vue-devtools-prebuilt in the package.json. There is also a npm run update:vue-devtools script that will delete it and re-download latest from the web store if you are using the prebuilt version.

Alternatives

• Vue 3 Desktop and Mobile - Fork of this repo but with NativeScript added to also build for Android and iOS.
• nw-vue-cli-example - Uses Vue-CLI (WebPack), has Vue 2 and Vue 3 branches.
• nwjs-vue - Uses Vue-CLI 2
• vue-desktop-basic - Does not use a build system at all, all .vue files run directly in the browser context
• nw-vue3-typescript-pinia - Old fork of this repo but with TS added

Updating to newer NW.js versions

1. When updating the version of NW.js devDependency, also update these:
   • package.json version, devDeps, build nwVersion, volta
   • build.target in vite.config.js
   • Update the Chromium/Node version numbers at the top of the README
2. Bump the version number, and all the npm scripts that reference the version number
3. Run npm run regression after updating dependencies or other major changes to verify builds still work correctly