flexxui / firetron

Create standalone desktop apps that use Firefox as a runtime

Firetron

experimental, work in progress, do not use

Create standalone desktop apps that use Firefox as a runtime. Web browsers provide a stable and rich application environment. This has made Electron a popular tool for building desktop applications. Firetron is similar to Electron, but does is based on Firefox, making it a more lightweight alternative. Further, apps created with Firetron can make use of the Firefox that a user has installed on the system. Therefore, frozen apps can be as small as 10 MB.

How it works (more or less):

• PyInstaller is used to freeze a launcher and optionally a server script.
• The result is bundled with a XUL application definition.
• The launcher detects the location of Firefox (on the system, or in the same bundle) and runs it with the --app argument pointing to the XUL application.

What kinds of apps can you create:

• Apps that simply display a website (but have their own window with icon etc.).
• Apps defined by static html/js/css assets.
• Apps using a server process.
• There is no NodeJS (which is positive thing, IMO).