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Neutralinojs 2022 Roadmap

Every year, we typically publish a high-level view of planned milestones. We wrote the "Neutralinojs roadmap 2021" article covering milestones for the year 2021. The year 2021 roadmap focused on building an error code system, synchronizing features among supported platforms, completing pending feature requests, and refactoring the main codebase with a better structure. We are happy to announce that we achieved all the planned milestones and passed many extra milestones.

Achievements in 2021#

Here are some highlighted updates from 2021.

  • We changed the native API communication from the synchronous HTTP RESTful approach to asynchronous WebSocket-based communication.
  • A lot of code refactoring happened. We re-structured the main codebase, JavaScript client API, and created a detailed technical contribution guide.
  • We made all API functions asynchronous with Promises and implemented a complete error-code system for handling errors.
  • We added many features to the framework: auto-updater, extensions system, new configuration options, new dialog boxes implementation, draggable regions, multi-window API, new global variables, API permission system, new child process implementation, etc.
  • We integrated a built-in events system for native, browser, and extension events.
  • Now Neutralinojs has an automated DevOps workflow for releases thanks to the ReleaseZri project. Also, we added a C++ and JavaScript integration test suite.

2021 was a great year for Neutralinojs - we were able to make the framework and tools better with great features and improvements.

Community#

There is always a great community behind every successful open-source project. Neutralinojs community supported us to make the project better by submitting ideas, discussing new features, and reporting bugs. Also, we met great code contributors around the world.

See the following community statistics.

  • 4.7k+ stargazers on GitHub.
  • 120 members on Discord.
  • 248 members on Slack.
  • 18k+ neu CLI downloads.

Neutralinojs got featured on many blog posts, articles, HackerNews threads, Reddit threads, YouTube videos, newsletters, many websites, and worldwide Tweets. Also, we had an opportunity to get featured on the JavaScript Weekly newsletter several times. Some developers built Neutralinojs app templates for various frontend frameworks.

Thank you so much, everyone. We couldn't reach a wider developer audience without your support.

Sponsors#

We accept infrastructure and monetary donations. Right now, we have one infrastructure sponsor and three financial donators. MacStadium sponsored Neutralinojs by providing a free Mac Mini device. Three Patreon users helped the maintainer to allocate more time for the project.

Thanks, MacStadium, and all patrons. If you would like to support us, consider becoming a sponsor - or making a financial contribution via Patreon.

Roadmap of 2022#

We changed the native API several times. But, now the API function interface is almost stable and ready for production use-cases. Also, we recently added a way to write Neutralinojs app backends with any programming language via the new extensions API. Therefore, in 2022, we are happy to see some community projects/templates that let developers write Neutralinojs apps with Python, Go, Node.js, Rust, and C#. We recently added chrome mode to let Neutralinojs apps run as Chrome apps. So, our first goal is to test it and make a new release.

Here is an overview of the 2022 roadmap.

  • Improving the window mode by solving issues in the Neutralinojs's webview
  • Implementing screen details and global keyboard shortcut API
  • Updating the official documentation and creating more content for the developer community
  • Completing feature requests and ideas submitted by the community

Check 2022 roadmap repo and suggest ideas: https://github.com/neutralinojs/roadmap

Why we are building Neutralinojs#

You may think why we are building another JavaScript framework. Electron dominates the desktop application development industry. Even big tech companies tend to use Electron to build their desktop apps. The Electron framework is a great tool for building large-scale desktop apps for high-end computers. However, there is a problem if a simple desktop app takes hundred megabytes of disk space and consumes above-average resources. Moreover, there is a problem if your app performs poorly on low-end or mid-end computers.

Yes, there are many lightweight alternatives for Electron already. However, Neutralinojs is a lightweight alternative for Electron with unique features. You can run Neutralinojs-based desktop apps on Linux, macOS, Windows, Web, and Chrome. We always strive to offer simple solutions for complex problems. For example, we offer a minimal functional API without complicating the API with many OOP classes. Also, we provide a minimal CLI to manage Neutralinojs apps. Neutralinojs indeed give you the freedom to extend the native API with any programming language.

Neutralinojs has numerous use-cases. For example, you can use Neutralinojs cloud mode as a message broker to integrate multiple processes. You can write Chrome apps or web apps with native features. Neutralinojs is a framework to build, learn, experiment, and enjoy software development. See a detailed comparison with other frameworks here.

Build an app with Neutralinojs - feel the difference - and join with our journey.