Gooey

A framework to create single executable web apps.

Overview

Gooey provides a base to create a single executable that displays a GUI through the user's default browser. It is designed to automatically open a browser tab when double clicked, communicate through websockets, and automatically shutdown when the user closes the last tab connected to the server. Some use cases for Gooey are simple tools that could benefit from a GUI or a debug dashboard for a service, all without the heavy weight of something like Electron or having try to use GUI bindings that are tied to a particular platform.

Quickstart

First, if you haven't already, go get github.com/0xABAD/gooey. Then create a new directory for a Go package and copy this code:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"os/signal"
	"time"

	"github.com/0xABAD/gooey"
)

func main() {
	var (
		app    testApp
		server gooey.Server
		notify = make(chan os.Signal)
		done   = make(chan struct{})
	)
	signal.Notify(notify, os.Kill, os.Interrupt)
	go func() {
		<-notify
		close(done)
	}()
	server.Start(done, &app)
}

type testApp struct{}

func (a *testApp) Start(closed <-chan struct{}, incoming <-chan []byte, outgoing chan<- interface{}) {
	count := 0
	ticker := time.NewTicker(1 * time.Second)
	for {
		select {
		case <-closed:
			return
		case <-ticker.C:
			outgoing <- fmt.Sprintf("Message from server.  Count %d", count)
			count++
		}
	}
}

Now run go run test.go. You should see something like this:

Some things you may have noticed:

• A browser window was automatically opened
• The address shows a random port number assigned
• We see the message being pushed from the server once a second
• The page loaded was embedded within the executable
• When closing the tab the server was automatically shutdown

Of course, all of this functionality may be configured through the gooey.Server struct. See the documentation for more.

Setup Tool

Gooey comes with a setup tool that contains commands that may aid in development:

• favicon go run setup.go favicon FILE PACKAGE_NAME: This will create a file named favicon.go that contains const FAVICON string where the value is the contents of FILE encoded in base64. The file will placed under the package designated by PACKAGE_NAME. The favicon.go will be created in the directory of where this command is run. You can assign the FAVICON string as a value to the FavIcon field in the gooey.Server struct.

LICENSE

Gooey is licensed under Zlib license but it does use gorilla/websocket, while having a permissive license, requires you redistibute its license whether redistibuting in source or binary form.