JavaScript today is the language of the Internet. It can be run in the browser, on the server, or it can be used for desktop and mobile applications.
Being good on its own, JS gets even better when applied in an ecosystem. JavaScript libraries have become a handy solution for developers, allowing them to avoid reinventing the wheel with each new project. Such libraries are quite similar, however, they are normally designed for a specific purpose. They can help you overcome complexities such as data management, creating beautiful visualizations, and functional programming. Besides, a well-developed library saves time and resources significantly.
There are many JS libraries in the market. In the following overview, we will focus on the most popular and effective solutions for desktop apps.
Let’s start with Electron JS. There are a lot of well-known desktop applications built with this library: Skype, Slack, Discord, Insomnia.
Electron is used for creating applications with HTML & CSS, JS. It is a Chromium engine, in which all your code is executed. Developer Tools and Storage Access become available with it.
At the same time, some users note quite a serious drawback of the library, which is large memory consumption. However, taking into consideration all the popular applications created with this library, memory consumption becomes less important if the product is effective, the code is written accurately and the processes are distributed.
This one may be less popular but not less effective. The library is steadily gaining popularity.
It is a JS framework for cross-platform apps development. The tool includes 100+JavaScript widgets and fully-fledged SPA applications that can be built into any project straight away. Feature-rich CSS/ HTML5 controls save time for creating elegant apps. The choice of the tools provided by the library is really impressive, so the imagination of the developer is never limited.
The learning curve of the library is quite short due to detailed documentation, video tutorials, and a supportive forum community. The examples of projects built with Webix are shared on its blog.
NW.JS allows you to create cross-platform applications using web technologies. Today NW.JS is sponsored by Intel, as it was developed by combining Node.js framework and Chromium engine.
Though NW.JS can’t boast a rich list of high-profile projects, it’s still a very good framework for creating cross-platform applications, which will not only load a local website in the application window but also connect to the OS via the JavaScript API. This solution provides control of the parameters such as window size, toolbar, and menu items, as well as access to local files on the computer.
NW.js can be used with any additional frameworks and libraries. It allows you to call Node.js modules directly from the DOM, supports all browser features, and protects JavaScript source code.
AppJS is another open-source library to develop desktop applications using Node.js and the Chromium Embedded Framework. It is considered to be one of the oldest yet not always applicable to modern project frameworks.
AppJS allows developers to build desktop applications for Linux, Windows and Mac. Desktop tools and applications can thus be developed using the same libraries and knowledge used to build websites.
The Chromium Embedded Framework provides support for JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, SVG, and WebGL while Node.js brings HTTP/HTTPS servers and client APIs, filesystem, cryptography, sandboxed code execution environments, and tools for exposing native C++ bindings to JavaScript.
Now let’s turn to some less famous but rather perspective JS libraries.
One of them is Ramda, which is a cool JavaScript library for functional programming.
This library has a more focused goal. It is designed specifically for a functional programming style. It helps to create projects with a simple and concise code. All the functions are automatically curried.
In general, it is very easy to build functions as sequences of simpler functions, each of which transforms the data and passes it along to the next. Ramda is designed to support this style of coding.
This library is designed for syntax highlighting. It can work both in the browser and on the server. Highlight.js is capable of recognizing almost any code and has a built-in automatic language detection function.
It searches for program code between the <pre><code> tags, identifying the language used, and highlighting the syntax. Also, it supports several color schemes.
Highlight.js is very useful, for example, for those who run a website or blog with a lot of code.
The overview will not be full without several very narrow JS libraries that are still worthy of attention.
It is an open-source library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. It is extremely lightweight and has all the necessary functionality. This library works by default on all major mobile and desktop platforms, can be extended with plugins, has excellent documentation and a simple API.
It is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. It helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. The library is mostly used for data visualization. The tool provides a developer with the full capabilities of modern browsers, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.
It is an outstanding JavaScript library that uses WebGL as its main display tool, but also supports its other counterparts such as Canvas 2D, SVG, and CSS3D. It will help you create incredible things.
Results
To sum up, it should be mentioned that JavaScript libraries for desktop applications vary a lot. The choice is huge both in terms of the number of widgets included and the task they were created to deal with. We have tried to make the list of the most popular frameworks nowadays to facilitate the decision-making process for the developers. The final option depends on the particular project.
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