Appify UI 2011–2024

Create Mac apps.
Use HTML5 for the UI.
Script it with anything.
Can not possibly be simpler. This is dumb and bad and old. You should not use this.

But after a decade or so, I still use this thing and it works great for me.

New in 2023: rebuilt Appify UI native innards

Back in 2023, I recreated the native innards of Appify UI using Swift and SwiftUI.

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What is this?

A Mac app is essentially just an executable file in a folder along with a config file. That's all that is required.

An Appify UI app is

1. A folder structure
   • That conforms to the Cocoa Application Bundle standard
2. A config file
3. A shell script
4. A compiled binary
   • To load the interface
5. An interface
   • A compiled nib file with a single WebKit WebView
6. A url

Appify UI.app

A shell script that accepts arguments from an HTML form.

It creates a new Appify UI app on your Desktop with the configuration you provide.

The UI could be a lot better. Pull requests eagerly accepted.

Appify UI Node Demo.app

Instead of just a bash script, this uses node.js.
If node is not found, it quits and opens the node.js download page in your default web browser.
Before launching the webview, it starts up an http server.
When the app is closed, it closes the http server.

To create your own node.js based Mac app...

1. Duplicate Appify UI Node Demo.app and give it whatever name you like
   • e.g. My Awesome App.app
2. Edit My Awesome App.app/Contents/Info.plist
   • Each app needs a unique CFBundleIdentifier or else Bad Things may happen
3. Replace the folder My Awesome App.app/Contents/Resources/app with your own node.js app
4. Make sure that My Awesome App.app/Contents/Resources/app/server.js exports something with a listen method

How to package a Node.js Mac app for distribution

You could send it around as-is. By default it'll open their web browser and prompt them to install node.js if it's not already installed.

You could probly also package the node binary in the app. I haven't tried this, so please update this README once you do.

How to modify the nib and cocoa binary

The current version uses a heavily modified version of Apache Callback Mac (formerly PhoneGap-mac / MacGap). It's about as simple as you can get.

I may update this section later.

Similar Projects

https://github.com/maccman/macgap is probably what you should be using.

https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit is awesome, but large.

https://github.com/sveinbjornt/Platypus makes an app from terminal script, wraps it's output in the GUI window, handles CMD+Q etc