August 22nd, 2024

WelsonJS: Build a Windows app on the Windows built-in JavaScript engine

WelsonJS is a framework for building Windows desktop applications using JavaScript and other languages, featuring built-in transpilers, compatibility with web standards, and integration with Windows services and development tools.

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WelsonJS: Build a Windows app on the Windows built-in JavaScript engine

WelsonJS is a framework designed for building Windows desktop applications using JavaScript and other programming languages such as TypeScript, CoffeeScript, and ReScript. It utilizes the built-in ECMAScript engine in Windows, offering a similar experience to Electron. The project is dual-licensed under GPL 3.0 and MS-RL. Key features include built-in transpilers for various languages, compatibility with ES5, XML, JSON, and YAML, as well as support for HTML5 and CSS3. It comes pre-packaged with libraries like jQuery and jQuery UI, and provides integration with Windows services, registry, and security features. Development tools supported by WelsonJS include NPM, CommonJS, UMD, and the Chrome DevTools Protocol. The repository contains examples, including a simple application that demonstrates the framework's capabilities, along with screenshots that illustrate the graphical user interface and command-line environments. Additionally, it links to related projects that enhance or complement its functionality.

- WelsonJS allows building Windows applications using JavaScript and other languages.

- It supports various programming languages and includes built-in transpilers.

- The framework is compatible with multiple data formats and web standards.

- It integrates with Windows services and provides useful development tools.

- The repository offers examples and links to related projects for extended functionality.

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Link Icon 6 comments
By @cdaringe - about 2 months
I saw a partial example, but not clear instructions on how to bootstrap a project. Did I miss it in the README? Or should it be obvious to me if I have some XYZ experience?
By @rvnx - about 2 months
Quite amazing solution. From the .hta file you can see it was inspired by VBScript (whose most popular software is ILOVEYOU I guess).

It looks like the ultimate hack, but why not ? It's very creative and the intention is good as well: TypeScript/JavaScript is a very popular language. Though C#.NET is great as well.

It could make sense in the very long-term that Microsoft themselves explore this possibility.

Ultimately "TypeScript.NET or JavaScript.NET"

By @withinrafael - about 2 months
Before anyone gets the wild idea to use this, beware HTAs, VBScript, etc. are slated for removal from Windows around 2027.
By @mappu - about 2 months
HTAs are tied to MSHTML.dll (the old IE renderer) and WSH/CScript is tied to the old, slow IE javascript engine, right?

I would expect this to have very limited compatibility, and even with the transpiling, very limited performance. Or is it possible for this to somehow use Chakra, or Edge's V8 engine?

By @h335ian - about 2 months
Despite being down on all the extras, I wanna reiterate - I do think this is a cool project and I dig that HTAs are still around.
By @h335ian - about 2 months
Been doing this since 1999. The only thing novel I see here is the transpilers - but you know… you don’t need that. You can build HTAs with native JavaScript, CSS and HTML - and with a little VBScript mixin, directly work with Windows libs. Back in ‘99 and early 00’s I was delivering “thin-client” control panels & management tools for server farms, sensitive accounting data, among a variety of other things. It was (and likely still is) a great way to provide a web interface as a desktop app for scenarios where exposing the management interface to the open web is undesirable.

Nifty project, but IMHO the world is better off using native JavaScript without all the BS that comes with TypeScript, etc. JavaScript is so powerful and amazing, it’s a bummer to hamstring your app by using TypeScript and classic OO inheritance models that preclude the beauty and dynamics of JavaScript as a functional, prototypal language.