Q:

Making Chrome web app standalone desktop program

Google announced that they drop support for web apps in Chrome.
Basically, web app is a local HTML/CSS/JS app that runs in a separated custom "standalone" Chrome window.
Is there any way (preferably easy), to convert this web app to a real desktop app that not depend on Chrome in anyway? Using maybe NodeJS? If yes what is the right way to do it?
Thanks. 

A:

Don't know about "easy", but it seems to me that the natural evolution is to Electron or NW.js, and both of these are mentioned in the Google blog article on this subject. (I'm moving to Electron.) Both have advantages over Chrome Apps, mostly that they are true desktop applications. To cite one example, you can now manipulate the menu bar, something out-of-bounds for Chrome Apps.
Pure JavaScript code in your Chrome App, such as anything to access the internet, should move over directly. Same for much UI stuff, as you're still using a browser window for the UI. The app will, however, have to be restructured.
Added Note: Chrome Apps ran on 4 platforms: MacOS, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS. Electron and NW.js apps won't run on ChromeOS. So, the ability to write a four-platform completely binary-portable app is going away.

