@webviewjs/webview

@webviewjs/webview

Robust cross-platform webview library for Node.js written in Rust. It is a native binding to winit and wry allowing you to easily manage cross platform windowing and webview.

Highlights

• Promise-based application readiness with optional automatic event pumping.
• Non-blocking application pumping, so ordinary Node timers and I/O continue running.
• Browser windows, menus, dialogs, cookies, DevTools, and window controls.
• Typed EventEmitter APIs for applications, windows, webviews, and system tray icons.
• Shared browser contexts for profile, cookie, cache, and storage isolation.
• Cross-platform system tray icons with menus and runtime updates.
• Native Windows, macOS, X11, Wayland, iOS, and Android window extensions.
• IPC through window.ipc.postMessage(), with an optional alias such as window.bindings.
• Fetch-compatible asynchronous custom protocols, including Hono routing without an HTTP server.
• Promise-based webview.expose() namespaces for page-to-Node calls.

This library is still in development and not ready for production use. Feel free to experiment with it and report any issues you find.

See the full documentation for API references, guides, platform notes, and runnable examples.

Installation

npm install @webviewjs/webview

Supported platforms

Platform	OS	Arch	Supported
x86_64-pc-windows-msvc	Windows	x64
i686-pc-windows-msvc	Windows	x86
aarch64-pc-windows-msvc	Windows	arm64
x86_64-apple-darwin	macOS	x64
aarch64-apple-darwin	macOS	arm64
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu	Linux	x64
aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu	Linux	arm64
armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf	Linux	armv7
i686-unknown-linux-gnu	Linux	x86	(no CI)
aarch64-linux-android	Android	arm64	(experimental)
armv7-linux-androideabi	Android	armv7	(experimental)
x86_64-unknown-freebsd	FreeBSD	x64	(no CI)

Examples

Load external url

import { Application } from '@webviewjs/webview';
// or
const { Application } = require('@webviewjs/webview');

const app = new Application();
let mainWindow = null;
let mainWebview = null;

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  mainWindow = app.createBrowserWindow();
  mainWebview = mainWindow.createWebview({ url: 'https://nodejs.org' });
});

Event pumping

app.whenReady() starts the non-blocking event pump by default:

await app.whenReady({ interval: 16, ref: true });

For manual startup, disable auto-run:

const ready = app.whenReady({ autoRun: false });
app.run({ interval: 16, ref: true });
await ready;

interval defaults to 16 milliseconds and ref defaults to true. Use app.pumpEvents() for manual pumping.

System tray

Keep a strong JavaScript reference when you need to call tray methods or keep its listeners reachable:

let tray = null;

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  tray = app.createTrayIcon({
    id: 'main',
    icon: { data: rgba, width: 16, height: 16 },
    tooltip: 'My application',
    menu: { items: [{ id: 'quit', label: 'Quit' }] },
  });

  tray.on('click', (event) => console.log(event));
});

See the system tray reference and runnable tray example.

IPC and exposed functions

The webview page can send messages to Node through window.ipc.postMessage():

const webview = window.createWebview({ ipcName: 'bindings' });
webview.onIpcMessage((message) => console.log(message.body.toString()));

ipcName adds an alias, so the page can use window.bindings.postMessage(...); window.ipc remains available.

For typed request/response style calls, expose a namespace:

webview.expose('native', {
  version: '0.1.4',
  readConfig: async () => JSON.parse(await readFile('./config.json', 'utf8')),
});

In the page:

console.log(window.native.version);
const config = await window.native.readConfig();

Every exposed function returns a Promise in the page. Values, arguments, and results must be JSON-serializable. Violations use SerializationError.

Asynchronous custom protocols

Register a protocol before creating its webview:

window.registerProtocol('app', async (request) => {
  const filePath = join(process.cwd(), 'dist', new URL(request.url).pathname);
  try {
    return new Response(await readFile(filePath), {
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8' },
    });
  } catch {
    return new Response('Not found', {
      status: 404,
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain; charset=utf-8' },
    });
  }
});

window.createWebview({ url: 'app://localhost/index.html' });

See Custom Protocols, IPC, and the runnable custom protocol and expose examples.

Menu System

WebviewJS provides a cross-platform menu system that works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Basic Menu Setup

import { Application } from '@webviewjs/webview';

const app = new Application();

// Set global application menu
app.setMenu({
  items: [
    {
      label: 'File',
      submenu: {
        items: [
          { id: 'new', label: 'New', accelerator: 'CmdOrCtrl+N' },
          { id: 'open', label: 'Open', accelerator: 'CmdOrCtrl+O' },
          { role: 'separator' },
          { id: 'quit', label: 'Quit', accelerator: 'CmdOrCtrl+Q' },
        ],
      },
    },
    {
      label: 'Edit',
      submenu: {
        items: [{ role: 'copy' }, { role: 'paste' }, { role: 'cut' }, { role: 'selectall' }],
      },
    },
  ],
});

const window = app.createBrowserWindow();
const webview = window.createWebview({ url: 'https://nodejs.org' });

app.run();

Menu Event Handling

import { Application } from '@webviewjs/webview';

const app = new Application();

// Handle menu events
app.on('custom-menu-click', ({ customMenuEvent: menuEvent }) => {
  console.log(`Menu item clicked: ${menuEvent.id}`);
  console.log(`From window: ${menuEvent.windowId}`);

  // Handle specific menu items
  switch (menuEvent.id) {
    case 'new':
      console.log('Creating new document...');
      break;
    case 'open':
      console.log('Opening file...');
      break;
    case 'quit':
      app.exit();
      break;
  }
});

// Set up menu...
app.setMenu({
  /* ... */
});

Window-Specific Menus

const app = new Application();

// Create window with custom menu
const window = app.createBrowserWindow({
  title: 'Custom Window',
  menu: {
    items: [
      {
        id: 'window-action',
        label: 'Window Action',
        accelerator: 'Ctrl+W',
      },
    ],
  },
});

// Or check if window has a menu
if (window.hasMenu()) {
  console.log('This window has a menu');
}

Menu Item Options

• id: Unique identifier for the menu item (used in events)
• label: Display text for the menu item
• enabled: Whether the item is clickable (default: true)
• accelerator: Keyboard shortcut (e.g., "CmdOrCtrl+N", "Alt+F4")
• submenu: Nested menu items
• role: Predefined menu items with built-in behavior

Predefined Menu Roles

• "copy": Standard copy action
• "paste": Standard paste action
• "cut": Standard cut action
• "selectall": Select all text action
• "separator": Visual separator line

IPC

const app = new Application();
const window = app.createBrowserWindow();

const webview = window.createWebview({
  html: `<!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
        <head>
            <title>Webview</title>
        </head>
        <body>
            <h1 id="output">Hello world!</h1>
            <button id="btn">Click me!</button>
            <script>
                btn.onclick = function send() {
                    window.ipc.postMessage('Hello from webview');
                }
            </script>
        </body>
    </html>
    `,
  preload: `window.onIpcMessage = function(data) {
        const output = document.getElementById('output');
        output.innerText = \`Server Sent A Message: \${data}\`;
    }`,
});

if (!webview.isDevtoolsOpen()) webview.openDevtools();

webview.onIpcMessage((data) => {
  const reply = `You sent ${data.body.toString('utf-8')}`;
  webview.evaluateScript(`onIpcMessage("${reply}")`);
});

app.run();

Closing the Application

You can close the application, windows, and webviews gracefully to ensure all resources (including temporary folders) are cleaned up properly.

const app = new Application();
const window = app.createBrowserWindow();
const webview = window.createWebview({ url: 'https://nodejs.org' });

app.on('application-close-requested', () => {
  console.log('Application is closing, cleaning up resources...');
});

app.on('window-close-requested', () => {
  console.log('Window close requested');
});

// Close the application gracefully (cleans up temp folders)
app.exit();

// Or hide/show the window
window.hide(); // Hide the window
window.show(); // Show the window again

// Or reload the webview
webview.reload();

For more details on closing applications and cleaning up resources, see the Closing Guide.

Keep strong references

Retain BrowserWindow, Webview, WebContext, and TrayIcon wrappers for as long as you need to call their methods or retain their JavaScript listeners. Avoid discarded temporary handles:

const windows = [];

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  const window = app.createBrowserWindow();
  const webview = window.createWebview({ url: 'https://example.com' });
  windows.push({ window, webview });
});

The root Application owns native resources created through it. app.exit(), app[Symbol.dispose](), and application garbage collection dispose those resources in shutdown order. Retained wrappers then report isDisposed() === true, and method calls fail with a disposed error. Individual windows, webviews, contexts, and tray icons also support dispose() and Symbol.dispose.

Check out examples directory for more examples:

• menu-system.mjs - Comprehensive menu system demonstration with all features
• window-menus.mjs - Window-specific vs global menu examples
• http/ - Serving content from a web server to webview
• transparent.mjs - Transparent window example
• close-example.mjs - Graceful application closing

Run any example with: node examples/menu-system.mjs (after building the project)

Building executables

The CLI feature is very experimental and may not work as expected. Please report any issues you find.

You can use Single Executable Applications feature of Node.js to build an executable file. WebviewJS comes with a helper cli script to make this process easier.

webview --build --input ./path/to/your/script.js --output ./path/to/output-directory --name my-app

You can pass --resources ./my-resource.json to include additional resources in the executable. This resource can be imported using getAsset() or getRawAsset() functions from node:sea module.

Development

Prerequisites

• Bun >= 1.3.0
• Rust stable toolchain
• Node.js >= 24 (for testing)

Setup

bun install

Build

bun run build