thrust

DEPRECATED - This package is no longer supporter or maintained.

Chromium-based cross-platform / cross-language application framework

Thrust is require/import-able, it lets you distribute NodeJS, Go or Python GUI apps directly
through their native package managers.

Thrust is based on Chromium's Content Module and is supported on Linux, MacOSX and Windows:

Screenshot of Thrust Getting Started example running on each major platform.

To better understand what Thrust can do, check out JankyBrowser by
@morganrallen, the cross-platform browser that fits in a gist:

npm install -g \
  https://gist.github.com/morganrallen/f07f59802884bcdcad4a/download

Table of Contents

• Language bindings
  • NodeJS
  • Go
  • Python
  • Scala
  • Clojure
  • Perl
• API Reference
• Architecture
• Community
  • Request for API
  • List of Thrust Users
  • Thrust 7.5k Contest
  • Getting Involved
• Features & Roadmap
• Building Thrust from Sources

Language bindings

Thrust's binary distribution exposes its API on the standard IO and language
specific library packages automatically download the binary distribution at
installation. Thrust is based on Chromium's content module and uses web-pages
as its GUI.

All these Getting Started example work as is on each major platform (MacOSX,
Windows, Linux)

NodeJS

Getting Started

First install with npm install node-thrust

require('node-thrust')(function(err, api) { 
  api.window({ root_url: 'https://google.com' }).show();
});

Library

• node-thrust breach/node-thrust

Go

Getting Started

First download with go get -u github.com/miketheprogrammer/go-thrust/

package main

import (
"github.com/miketheprogrammer/go-thrust/lib/dispatcher"
"github.com/miketheprogrammer/go-thrust/lib/spawn"
"github.com/miketheprogrammer/go-thrust/lib/bindings/window"
"github.com/miketheprogrammer/go-thrust/lib/commands"
)

func main() {
spawn.Run()
size := commands.SizeHW{}
opts := window.Options{
RootUrl: "http://google.com",
Size: size,
Title: "Demo window",
HasFrame: true,
}
thrustWindow := window.NewWindow(opts)
thrustWindow.Show()
thrustWindow.Maximize()
thrustWindow.Focus()
dispatcher.RunLoop()
}

Library

• go-thrust: miketheprogrammer/go-thrust

Python

Getting Started

First install with pip3 install pythrust [--user] (requires Python3)

import asyncio, pythrust

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
api = pythrust.API(loop)

asyncio.async(api.spawn())
asyncio.async(api.window({ 'root_url': 'http://google.com' }).show())

loop.run_forever()

Library

• pythrust breach/pythrust

Scala

Getting Started

Include scala-thrust jar on your classpath. (Add to lib in your project.)

import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import com.github.eklavya.thrust._

object Main extends App {
  Window.create("http://google.com").foreach { w =>
    w.show
    w.maximize
    w.openDevtools
    w.focus(true)
    w.onBlur(() => println("we were blurred"))
    w.onFocus(() => println("we were focused"))
    Menu.create("MyMenu").foreach { m =>
      val i = MenuItem("Item1", _ => println("Item1 was clicked"))
      m.addItem(i)
      m.popup(w)
    }
  }
}

Library

• scala-thrust eklavya/scala-thrust

Clojure

Getting Started

• Installation
• Sample Project

(ns my-app.core
  (:require [clj-thrust.core :refer [create-process destroy-process]]
            [clj-thrust.window :as w]))

(let [process (create-process) ; `create-process` also takes path to Thrust directory
      window (w/create-window process
               :root-url "http://localhost:8080" ; URL to your web app
               :size {:width 400 :height 300})]
  (w/listen-closed window
    (fn [e]
      (destroy-process process))) ; Optionally call `(System/exit 0)` here.
  (w/show window)
  (w/focus window true))

Library

• clj-thrust solicode/clj-thrust

Perl

Getting Started

Install with cpanm Thrust [--sudo]

Simple command line test:

perl -MThrust -e 'Thrust->window->show->maximize->open_devtools->run'

Basic program

use Thrust;

my $t = Thrust->new;

my $w = $t->window(
          root_url => 'data:text/html,Hello World!',
          title => 'My App',
          size => { width => 800, height => 600 },
        );

$w->on(closed => sub { exit });

$w->show;

$t->run; ## enter event loop

Library

• metacpan
• github

API Reference

The API reference as well as links to specific language bindings documentations
are availble in the docs/
directory.

Architecture

[Thrust Architecture]

          (Platform)           [stdio]      (Your Implementation)
                                                                          
                                  #
               +--------------+   #       +-----------------------+, Cocoa / Aura, #   +---, win3: (HTML/JS), +-------+------+   #, +-----------------------++, #   +--, win2: (HTML/JS), cli
+------------+ +-------+------+   #, +-----------------------++, +-+ thrust (C++) +-------+-+    win1: (HTML/JS), ContentAPI, +-------+------+   #     +-----------------------+, #, (TCP/FS), (Blink/v8), +-------+------+   #     +-----------------------+, + JSON RPC srv +---------+ Client App (any Lang), srv
+------------+ +--------------+   #     +-----------------------+, #

Community

Request for API

• List of API needed by various projects on Thrust:
  Request for API

List of Thrust Users

• List of people relying on Thrust:
  List of Thrust Users

Getting Involved

No longer maintained actively.

Features & Roadmap

• window creation create, show, close resize, minimize, maximize, ...
• node.js, go node.js and go bindings libraries
• window events close, blur, focus, unresponsive, crashed
• cross-platform equivalent support on MacOSX, Windows and Linux
• sessions off the record, custom storage path, custom cookie store
• kiosk kiosk mode
• application menu global application menu (MacOSX, X11/Unity)
• webview webview tag (secure navigation, tabs management)
• frameless frameless window and draggable regions
• python python bindings library
• remote thrust specific IPC mechanism for client/server communication
• proxy enable traffic proxying (Tor, header injection, ...)
• tray icon tray icon native integration
• protocol specific protocol registration (file://, ...)

Building Thrust from Sources

You will generally don't need to build thrust yourself. A binary version of
thrust should be automatically fetched by the library you're reyling on at
installation.

To build thrust, you'll need to have python 2.7.x and git installed. You can
then boostrap the project with:

./scripts/boostrap.py                                

Build both the Release and Debug targets with the following commands:

./scripts/update.py
./scripts/build.py

Note that bootstrap.py may take some time as it checks out brightray and
downloads libchromiumcontent for your platform.