Mac OSX (and soon Windows 7) application for running SAP (Software As a Product) apps.
Software As a Product is the idea that by structuring a web app for offline experiences first, you can create a single app that seamlessly works as a local (double-click installed) application, a website, or an app, with transparent, automatic updates. Essentially you get all the benefits the web promises: multi-platform support, transparent updates, open standards, etc. in every environment you want to deploy to.
SAP builds upon the ideas around Offline First developed by the amazing Hoodie team, and is meant to extend the reach of Hoodie-based apps with the addition of the appcache plugin for hoodie. The dream is a boilerplate project for Offline First apps that lets you build one app and one service that will work as a web page, resin-based local app, iOS-pinnable web app, and Android-pinnable web app, all in one.
The name is a play on the idea of Software as a Service (SaaS) where it is assumed that when one is always online and always connected, there is little to no need for local storage. SAP assumes the opposite - connectivity is rarely consistent, especially on mobile devices - and therefore changing the architecture of apps to assume the disconnected state first provides a better user experience, while providing most of the benefits of SaaS.
Resin is the PC client for running SAP apps. Rather than a single, dedicated web browser, Resin aims to be a tool for making standalone apps out of web app assets for clean integration into the host OS.
Resin is a simple extension of the Chromium Embedded Framework. By leveraging the HTML5 Application Cache, Resin points to your SAP-architected web app and suddenly transforms it into a fully-fledged, installable version of your app. And whenever the user is connected to the web, this app will automatically and transparently update itself to the latest version, simply by adhering to the rules of the HTML5 Application Cache.
You first need to download the CEF binaries for your platform, available at http://cefbuilds.com/. Clone this repo, and decompress the archive contents into the project directory.
For Mac OSX, the XCode project is configured to build from there. For other platforms, stay tuned.
Once you have a built version of Resin, making work as your custom app is just three easy steps:
- Rename the package: Rename the package from Resin.app to YourAppName.app, and modify the Info.plist CFBundleName property to be your app name. You may also want to consider modifying CFBundleIdentifier.
- Set the link in the plist: Change the HomePath property in Info.plist to point to the website for your app.
- Change your icons: Change the resin.icns file to be your icon of choice. Make your PNG a icns file real fast with this tool.
I've made a simple Node utility for doing all of this for you, called resin-server. Check it out.
By all means, use a browser if you want! Most major browsers support the application cache. Resin is for making the app work well within the native OS, rather than just a browser tab.
node-webkit and related frameworks are great for using web standards for desktop applications. But node-webkit app design encourages server-like code to be written in Node.JS, which complicates portability to the web. It would be possible to hack a SAP application together using something like require.js and a custom auto-updater, but CEF is such a straightforward platform that the additional pieces to build resin amount to less code, fewer moving pieces, and therefore easier support.
PhoneGap inspired SAP, for sure. But PhoneGap is meant for standalone apps with a pre-defined manifest, which limits the transparent updating concept of SAP. So a new packaging concept was needed. For SAP, this packaging model is actually just a manifest - no zip, 7z, or native mobile app needs to be created, as Resin pulls the same resources as the web browser would.
For the same reasons PhoneGap isn't a good solution for SAP. Widgets are standalone apps with a pre-defined manifest.
- Hoodie - http://www.hood.ie
- Hoodie AppCache Plugin - https://github.com/gr2m/hoodie-plugin-appcache
- resin-server - https://github.com/moneppo/resin-server