How to make exe files from a node.js app?

Question

I have a node app that I wrote, that I run as follows:

node.exe app.js inputArg

Is there some way I can package this into a .exe by itself? So I can just do something like this?

App.exe inputArg

I have some way of faking this by using a batch file, so I can do this:

App.bat inputArg

But this requires that I have all the dependencies and node in that folder, which is not ideal.

Answer 1

The solution I've used is Roger Wang's node-webkit.

This is a fantastic way to package nodejs apps and distribute them, it even gives you the option to "bundle" the whole app as a single executable. It supports windows, mac and linux.

Here are some docs on the various options for deploying node-webkit apps, but in a nutshell, you do the following:

1. Zip up all your files, with a package.json in the root
2. Change the extension from .zip to .nw
3. copy /b nw.exe+app.nw app.exe

Just as an added note - I've shipped several production box/install cd applications using this, and it's worked great. Same app runs on windows, mac, linux and over the web.

Update: the project name has changed to 'nw.js' and is properly located here: nw.js