/why

webkit in the cloud

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

why

Off-load expensive rendering operations to your back-end cloud servers, using the magic of nodejs.

Never again will you suffer from cross-browser inconsistencies, with this powerful application server (or "app server", if you prefer), all users, everywhere, get an 100% equal rendered page.

Demo: http://why-demo.herokuapp.com/

But how??

why (name pending) acts as a proxy to your static web application, by capturing requests, and dispatching them to a phantomjs instance, which captures a screenshot of your webpage, in its ideal webkit environment, at the correct dimensions for the user's device, and embeds it in a light-weight frame.

Pros:

  • it's ajaxy
  • faster
  • webkit
  • nodejs?!
  • retina ready probably
  • web scale
  • renders cross-browser issues a thing of the past
  • webkit

Cons:

  • none

Are you serious?

Well, it does actually work. Yes, you can even click links...mostly.

Usage:

  1. Install nodejs, npm.
  2. Install phantomjs, make sure it's in your $PATH: $ npm -g install phantomjs
  3. Clone this repo: $ git clone https://github.com/filp/why.git
  4. Install dependencies: $ cd why && npm install
  5. Start the server: $ cd why && bin/server.js [--port 8181 --privPort 9292 --root /path/to/your/app]
  6. Check it 🐱

To-do:

  • Add a kick-ass example web app