Where to go when Chrome Packaged Apps are no more

Question

I have developed and regularly use a chrome packaged app (written in HTML,CSS,Javascript) that takes a set of local javascript files in a local folder on my machine and minifies them (as a group) and writes the new minified files (one per original source file) to my local disk, overwriting any previous minified files if they exist.

Google have now announced that they are discontinuing support for Chrome Packaged Apps from 2017 and suggest that developers migrate their app to the web. This will not work for me as for very good reasons web apps cannot play with the users local file system.

Any suggestions for how I can continue to use my app after 2017 ? I do not want to change the code base (HTML/CSS/Javascript) as I do not know any other languages and I have not got the time to translate the code base.

Answer 1

If you need to run on ChromeOS (Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, Chromebits) you need to keep your Chrome App (what they are called now), and Google has said they will maintain support.

Otherwise, I suggest moving to Electron, although NW.js is also an option. (I like Electron better, and have had great results.)

You'll discover that it's actually easier to build with Electron than with the Chrome App APIs. There are many, many more libraries for node.js than there are for Chrome Apps, and many fewer restrictions on what you can do. Also, you can package up your app so it looks like a native app, and you'll discover that it's easier to get your users to install it, as they're used to that. Teaching people how to download from the Chrome Web Store was a challenge, especially for those who had no idea what I meant when I said that Chrome had to be installed first and that they had to sign in.

Electron won't run on ChromeOS, unfortunately, so 4-way portability has become 3-way.