| ▲ | cxr 2 days ago | |
It's possible to make (via polyglot JS/HTML files[1]) apps that offer both a command-line interface that can be invoked with NodeJS (or other JS-ish runtime) or can be opened in the browser (via double-click, the browser's File Open dialog, or by just typing the file path into the location bar) if the right version of NodeJS isn't available (or for people who just don't want to give carte blanche to run outside the safety of the browser sandbox to programs downloaded from the internet, given the poor track record of NPM-based program creators/maintainers to stay on top of their dependencies). A ton more programs, especially one-shot programs that operate on a single batch input (e.g. a directory of files) and then generate some output—like a ZIP copy of the files for your static site—should offer this but unfortunately don't. At best they'll put out an Electron app for cross-platform compatibility, but it doesn't sidestep the problem of granting overbroad capabilities to NPM modules (or the massive memory footprint). Then, in this case, there's Observable Desktop, which as a Mac-only app, falls short even of that mark. | ||