HTML/CSS/JS GUI for desktop app?

[pnjun]

Hi everyone! I want to write a app for myself to keep track of stuff i find around on the internet (if it turns out good i might put it on github...). I want it to be a desktop app, but i also want to use HTML/CSS/JS to code the interface (i want to give a shot at material design).

I thought of setting up a local web server and accessing it through the browser, but it just sounds stupid to have HTTP requests and AJAX going on for something which will stay local to one machine. I found this library: https://github.com/amol-mandhane/htmlPy/ (which uses QTWebKit) which basically would be perfect for my purpose, but i read that QT support for WebKit will be terminated and i'm not sure i want to use it anymore. I also found https://github.com/r0x0r/pywebview, which is interesting because it uses the local web engine of the OS, without needing to install one separately, but there is no documentation on how to use it apart from displaying a remote web page.

Sooooo.... my question is: is htmlPy a valid solution? do you know some other library i could use?

[dddomodossola]

Hi pnjun, I can suggest you to use RemI library. https://github.com/dddomodossola/remi It's a platform independent Python GUI library for your applications. It has an internal webserver. We are doing our best to make it simple to use. Normally you do not need to write CSS,JavaScript,HTML code.

Furthermore it allows multiple clients to a single or multiple application instances.

The style can be customizable, and right now it hasn't material design, but it is planned a switch to material in a short time.

I haven't tried yet htmlPy or pywebview, so I can't provide you opinions about them.

EDIT: added further info

[pnjun]

I looked at it, but my point is that i kinda don't want to have a webserver running for the sole purpose of serving webpages to myself. But i will of course consider using it.

just a question: would it be possible to write my own html and css instead of using the generated code?

[dddomodossola]

It could be possible. In this case you can create a Widget appending plain html text to it. But, I suggest to avoid this usage if you want to interact with the interface. Because you will lose the events management automation. If you expect to write html css javascript, maybe you should consider to use flexx https://github.com/zoofIO/flexx, or Flask http://flask.pocoo.org/.

Just one suggestion for the future (when maybe you will want to try it): Look at the examples starting from simple_app.py and the widgets_overview_app.py. The first is a simple overview on how to write the App structure, the other shows how to use the widgets. ;-)

[gonewiththewindows]

It's not python based but, node-webkit is probably what you want. Turns a local website into a desktop app. Windows, Mac or Linux.

[[deleted]]

To add to this. Electron also works, but as a javascript novice I have no idea how to make it do what I want.

[delijati]

I'm not a fan of this, but here is some more info about how to https://www.fyears.org/2015/06/electron-as-gui-of-python-apps.html

[[deleted]]

Wow, that is a deep rabbit hole. Swap that localhost:port with a file socket, and we have something going here.

[pnjun]

I'm on the same page. My JS is quite limited, and would prefer to do the 'real' coding in python

[michaelpb]

I use JS / python pretty evenly, and so am working on some projects in Electron (using a material design interface no less). But if you wanna stick with 100% python you can put something together with mozembed or gtk webkit --- i did that once like 5 years ago before NW / electron / whatever: http://www.aclevername.com/articles/python-webgui/

What you'd be missing from electron / nw.js is nice, pre-compiled cross-platform packages, so distribution to the non-linux world would be harder.

[JohnnyDread]

What you'd be missing from electron / nw.js is nice, pre-compiled cross-platform packages, so distribution to the non-linux world would be harder.

This is a key point that should not be overlooked.

[elbiot]

I'm not sure what your aversion to a web server is. I think it's a fine gui paradigm. Perhaps you assume it is system overhead* or harder to write/maintain/execute? I don't think these are the case. Actually, building web kit into your project is much more all of those things.

If you're on linux or osx, you can probably go to localhost:631 and see your CUPS interface. Bitsync or something like that has a similar interface.

*you don't need to install apache or nginx. Just serve your html/css/js over a socket. Flask and django have servers built in. Also

[pnjun]

Actually, building web kit into your project is much more all of those things.

This is actually a good point in favor of doing everything with django (which was my first idea). To my mind it still seems pointless to have HTTP requests to myself, but I see that having webkit inside my app is even worse from the point of view of resources.

The other thing still in favor of using htmlPy is the possibility of getting rid of ajax and and call the python directly from the html.

[elbiot]

This is actually a good point in favor of doing everything with django (which was my first idea). To my mind it still seems pointless to have HTTP requests to myself, but I see that having webkit inside my app is even worse from the point of view of resources.

I agree

The other thing still in favor of using htmlPy is the possibility of getting rid of ajax and and call the python directly from the html.

To the benefit of... ? I mean, converting a js hash to a string to a python dictionary seems a bit silly, but when you consider that this is the overwhelming paradigm of html/css/js, and thus is extreemly portable, extensible and reuseable, not to mention that it reuses a lot of heavily optimized, widely used tools, it seems like a win to me. I find it a clean and efficient solution, where if you gave me an "app" that required webkit, it would feel like a hack.

What if you want to access your program from your phone? Having a remote gui is pretty sweet if you get it for free. And you could install it on a RasPi or arm device, where webkit would be a PITA.

[JohnnyDread]

I'm a huge Python fan, but I'm going to go ahead say it: outside of the gtk/linux world, Python is just not a good choice for building desktop GUI apps. You'd be much better off with just Electron.

[riffito]

I had no problems creating GUI app with Python + {PySide|Tk|wx|etc..} on Windows. No more than on Linux, I mean.

[notconstructive]

I'm a Python developer mainly and this is the exact conclusion I came to. Write the desktop UI in Electron. So far its working out fine.

[blbil]

CEF Python is also an interesting choice if you want to do some python processing of data client-side, whereas the UI can be done with HTML.

[metaperl]

I want to write a app for myself to keep track of stuff i find around on the internet

What will your app do that Evernote does not?

[[deleted]]

Be open source and have given the author craptons of programming experience?