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ToDesktop 2.0 — All in one platform for building and releasing desktop apps
ToDesktop is an all-in-one platform for building and releasing desktop apps.
With ToDesktop 2.0, you can:
🛠Convert your web app to a desktop app or menubar app using our app builder
🧩Use our CLI to publish your own Electron app on our managed infrastructure
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@kokiweb Hey Kaloyan, possibly at some point (similar to what I said to Jim) Currently focused on tapping out the desktop market because there's still a ton of room for growth there 👌🏾
Congrats Dave and co!
I met Dave a couple months back when they were #1 global project on pioneer.app, he has extensive knowledge about Electron, user experience and a clear vision on how to close the gap on web apps and desktop apps.
Love ToDesktop 2.0.
A question for you: What's your plan on making the benefits of transforming web app to a desktop app using ToDesktop worthwhile for the end user of that app. Do you (plan to) consult your customers' designers/product people on what they can achieve using a ToDesktop executable?
> code signing especially for windows is a nightmare.
@elmasryahmed Tell me about it! We have a customer that refused to grant an EV windows cert unless they opted to fly out a consultant from the Code Signing company to "witness" a certificate signing request.
> How does code signing work with your service? Do you sign the apps on behalf of your customers?
Exactly. Our apps are sandboxed by Chromium and we only allow access to certain native APIs which aren't potentially dangerous. That allows us to safely sign our customer's apps. We have plans to allow users to upload their own certs and in that case, we will those users full access to all native APIs.
@davej Yeah I had to go through the same witness/lawyer/CPA bullshit with comodossl. Fortunately I found out about Certum.pl which has a much easier process.
I definitely recommend giving the option of uploading certificates since I guess many publishers want their name on the app not a third party.
Thanks so much Kat 🙌!
👋 Hi hunters!
The journey of ToDesktop started here on ProductHunt a year ago and so much has changed since. I’ve moved from working on this part-time to full-time. Two co-founders (Adam and Isaac) have joined me on this crazy adventure and we’ve released two new products: Menubar and CLI.
We’re just getting started but here’s a review of ToDesktop 2.0!
🌟 ToDesktop Menubar
@rrhoover asked for Menubar support, so we obliged. Now you can convert any web app into a menubar app as well as a desktop app. This gives your customers one-click access to your app at all times. You can even set-up a custom keyboard shortcut to trigger it.
🧩 ToDesktop Command Line Interface
A lot of interest came from companies who already had a desktop app built with Electron but didn't want to manage the build/release process. So we built a CLI that allows you to build and publish your existing Electron app with one simple command. Just like that, your Electron app is built with native installers, auto-updates, code signing and crash reports all baked-in.
🖥 New Web Interface
To support the new products, the web interface has been completely re-designed. This makes it a lot easier to manage your apps.
🔎 Docs and Recipes
To support our power users, we've created a documentation site and how-to guides (we call them recipes) for adding additional functionality to your desktop apps. We currently have guides on:
• Sending native notifications
• Separating desktop logic from web app logic • Adding browser controls to your Desktop app • Storing data • Adding download links to your website
• Enlarging the menubar window ⚡️ Our JavaScript API We now expose a window.todesktop object and native electron features when your app is being run as a desktop app. This means you can now get electron API access without the extra codebase to manage.
🚨 Badges and Progress Bars on your Icon
You can create badges on your dock icon. Here are the docs about how to do it in your app. We even made a neat video on how it all works below (contains Daft Punk 🕺).
⛓ App Protocols and Deeplinks
We've also made it possible to use app protocols and deeplinks. This means you can now programmatically launch your desktop application from your website.
✅ A WYSIWYG Button Builder
To support the success of our customers, we've added a step-by-step get started checklist, and a no-code builder for embedding your desktop download button
And there's a heck of a lot more:
• A "Launch at startup" option that lets you specify whether your desktop app should launch when a user starts their computer.
• A universal download link that detects what OS your user is own and then delivers the correct installer (.exe on Windows, .dmg on Mac or .AppImage on Linux)
• Branded download links which show your app being download from download.yourdomain.com instead of download.todesktop.com.
• We are now fully responsive, this means that you can build a desktop app on your mobile phone 🤯
• We added support for creating multiple apps on one user account
• MSI Installer which provides an alternative way for you to deploy your desktop app to customers.
• And so on...
The point is, there's a LOT of new features. I really hope you like it and we'd love feedback on what to improve.
A massive thank you to every single one of you who made ToDesktop possible. We wouldn't be where we are without the Product Hunt community, so you have my utmost gratitude 💖
🧩 ToDesktop Command Line Interface
A lot of interest came from companies who already had a desktop app built with Electron but didn't want to manage the build/release process. So we built a CLI that allows you to build and publish your existing Electron app with one simple command. Just like that, your Electron app is built with native installers, auto-updates, code signing and crash reports all baked-in.
🖥 New Web Interface
To support the new products, the web interface has been completely re-designed. This makes it a lot easier to manage your apps.
🔎 Docs and Recipes
To support our power users, we've created a documentation site and how-to guides (we call them recipes) for adding additional functionality to your desktop apps. We currently have guides on:
• Sending native notifications• Separating desktop logic from web app logic • Adding browser controls to your Desktop app • Storing data • Adding download links to your website
• Enlarging the menubar window ⚡️ Our JavaScript API We now expose a window.todesktop object and native electron features when your app is being run as a desktop app. This means you can now get electron API access without the extra codebase to manage.
🚨 Badges and Progress Bars on your Icon
You can create badges on your dock icon. Here are the docs about how to do it in your app. We even made a neat video on how it all works below (contains Daft Punk 🕺).
⛓ App Protocols and Deeplinks
We've also made it possible to use app protocols and deeplinks. This means you can now programmatically launch your desktop application from your website.
✅ A WYSIWYG Button Builder
To support the success of our customers, we've added a step-by-step get started checklist, and a no-code builder for embedding your desktop download button
And there's a heck of a lot more:
• A "Launch at startup" option that lets you specify whether your desktop app should launch when a user starts their computer.
• A universal download link that detects what OS your user is own and then delivers the correct installer (.exe on Windows, .dmg on Mac or .AppImage on Linux)
• Branded download links which show your app being download from download.yourdomain.com instead of download.todesktop.com.
• We are now fully responsive, this means that you can build a desktop app on your mobile phone 🤯
• We added support for creating multiple apps on one user account
• MSI Installer which provides an alternative way for you to deploy your desktop app to customers.
• And so on...
The point is, there's a LOT of new features. I really hope you like it and we'd love feedback on what to improve.
A massive thank you to every single one of you who made ToDesktop possible. We wouldn't be where we are without the Product Hunt community, so you have my utmost gratitude 💖
This looks super cool! I remember us spending months to get an Electron app up and running at my last job.
Really love this!
We're about to launch our Desktop apps and it took us 2 hours instead of several weeks for our engineering team, no-brainer for us.
The ToDesktop guys are absolute pro's when it comes to product development. Having a desktop app dev team will be a thing of the past if they keep shipping the way they have been this summer.
I've been using ToDesktop for nearly a year now. This app just keeps getting better and better... Love the new Menubar!
Keep up the stellar work 👏
@mkeftz Thanks Michael, we love Interplay and we're super proud that you went with us. 🙌
Fabulous product and amazing team! we have worked with them to bring our desktop app to life and they have been incredibly responsive when we needed assistance. Very happy with our finished product and highly recommend ToDesktop
Looks great Dave, and nice to see it in action after talking to you and Adam 👏 Look forward to seeing more!
Just tested this out with a side project, onboarding flow was seamless, everything worked really well. Very impressed by the idea and execution on this.
For a hobbyist that doesn't update their app very frequently, I think it's a little expensive - maybe a pay per build model might be better here, but also probably not the target market.
Great job to the team here.
Looks like you’ve really listened to customers and made great improvements guys. The new web ui looks slick too. Well done.
@jim_duggan Possibly at some point! Currently focused on tapping out the desktop market because there's still a ton of room for growth
Looks promising, we'll try it out on our web app. It should save us a lot of development time & effort!
Night Eye