Universal Dashboard makes building web apps really easy. Legend has it, it’s easier than other web frameworks. Many people have asked whether it’s a good replacement for desktop apps. I typically say yes because of the real-time, event-driven nature of the platform. That said, you still need to load up a browser and host the website somewhere. Today, I’m introducing UDForge. You can install it from the PowerShell Gallery right now. It’s a tiny, little module that takes advantage of Electron and Electron Forge to produce desktop apps with Universal Dashboard.
About UDForge
The folks at Electron have made it very easy to produce electron apps. You can just install a couple of NodeJS modules, include some assets and package up a cross-platform desktop app built on web technologies. This is exactly what I’m doing with UDForge. Specify a dashboard file, output path, and name for your executable and you’ll have your app in no time (as soon as you download all those node packages).
Just run New-UDDesktopApp to take care of business and ship your desktop app to your users. Here’s an app that pops up a BurntToast notification.
UDForge also produces a single file installer that you can provide to your users to install the application you just packaged.
I have some ideas for improvements if people think this is a cool idea.
- Including multi-file dashboards
- Additional customizations of the electron app
So I suggest you head over to GitHub and give UDForge a shot. File issues and hit me up on Twitter if you think this is cool.
