Cross-Platform

repo: bcoe/awesome-cross-platform-nodejs
category: Platforms

Contents

• Resources
• Applications
  • Development environment
  • Continuous integration
  • Virtualization
  • Compatibility
  • Databases
• Libraries
  • OS identification
  • Shell
  • Environment
  • Filesystem
  • Signals
  • Processes
  • Streams
  • Desktop UI
  • Windows registry
• Known issues
• Support

Resources

• [Core Node.js documentation](https://nodejs.org/en/docs/) - Especially the os, path, fs, process and child_process modules.
• [Cross-platform Node.js guide](https://github.com/ehmicky/cross-platform-node-guide) - How to write cross-platform Node.js code.
• [Microsoft Node.js Guidelines](https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejs-guidelines) - Tips, tricks, and resources for working with Node.js on Microsoft platforms.
• Writing Cross-Platform Node.js - Great tutorial covering many common issues that arise when writing cross-platform code: path creation, script execution, newline characters.
• Cross-platform terminal characters - All the characters that work on most terminals and most operating systems.

Applications

Development environment

• Node.js - Node.js installer for various platforms.
• nvm-windows - Manage multiple installations of Node.js on a Windows computer.
• nvm / n - Node version manager for macOS/Linux.
• [npm-windows-upgrade](https://github.com/felixrieseberg/npm-windows-upgrade) - Upgrade npm on Windows.
• windows-build-tools - Install C++ Build Tools for Windows using npm.

Continuous integration

• AppVeyor - Focused on Windows. Free tiers are available for OSS projects.
• Travis - Windows/macOS/Linux. Free for OSS projects.
• Azure Pipelines - Windows/macOS/Linux. Free for OSS projects with 10 parallel jobs.
• Github Action - Windows/macOS/Linux. GitHub Actions makes it easy to automate all your software workflows.
• Gitlab CI - Windows/macOS/Linux. GitLab CI/CD is a tool built into GitLab for software development.

Virtualization

• ievms - Automated installer for the free virtual machine images that Microsoft provides for testing on multiple versions of IE. These images can be useful for cross-platform testing various technologies, however make sure you read and understand Microsofts' licensing.
• VirtualBox - General purpose software for running x86 virtual machines.
• Docker - Software platform to create, deploy and manage virtualized application containers on a common operating system, with an ecosystem of allied tools.

Compatibility

• Wine - Run Windows API calls on Linux, Mac, BSD and Solaris.
• Cygwin - Run POSIX on Windows.
• WSL - Run the Linux command line on Windows (ELF binary execution, system calls, filesystem, Bash, core utilities, common applications).
• MinGW - gcc on Windows.
• msys / Git Bash - Bash on Windows.

Databases

• Redis - Native port of Redis for Windows.

Libraries

OS identification

• is-windows - Detect whether the current platform is Windows.
• is-wsl - Detect whether current platform is WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
• getos - Retrieve the current OS, including Linux distribution.
• os-name - Get the name of the current operating system.
• systeminformation - Hardware/software system information.

Shell

• execa - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.{execFile,exec}.
• gulp-execa - Cross-platform command execution in Gulp.js.
• cross-spawn - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.spawn().
• shelljs - Cross-platform Unix shell commands.
• node-windows - Windows support for Node.js scripts (daemons, eventlog, UAC, etc).
• log-symbols - Colored symbols for various log levels with Windows fallbacks.
• figures - Unicode symbols with Windows fallbacks.
• clipboardy / clipboard-cli - Cross-platform copy/paste.

Environment

• cross-env - Set environment variables cross-platform.
• user-home - Get the path to the user home directory. Cross-platform.
• username - Get the current username.
• osenv - Cross-platform environment variables.
• is-elevated - Check if the process is running with elevated privileges.
• which - Cross-platform implementation of Unix's which.

Filesystem

• rimraf / del - Delete files and folders. Cross-platform.
• make-dir - Cross-platform mkdir -p.
• readdirp - Recursive version of fs.readdir().
• cpy - Copy files. Cross-platform.
• chokidar - Improved cross-platform file watching.
• graceful-fs - Improves the fs module, especially on Windows.
• fs-extra - Combines graceful-fs with better JSON file reading and promises.
• any-path - Use Windows and POSIX paths interchangeably when fetching values from an object.
• dev-null-cli - Cross-platform /dev/null.
• global-cache-dir - Get the global OS-specific cache directory.

Signals

• fkill - Kill processes. Cross-platform.
• signal-exit - Cross-platform exit handler.
• human-signals - Human-friendly process signals.

Processes

• ps-list - Get running processes.
• process-exists - Check if a process exists.

Streams

• noop-stream - Cross-platform fs.createReadStream('/dev/null').
• random-bytes-readable-stream - Cross-platform fs.createReadStream('/dev/urandom').

Desktop UI

• open - Opens stuff like websites, files, executables. Cross-platform.
• node-notifier - Cross-platform desktop notifications.

Windows registry

• node-winreg - Access the Windows registry.
• rage-edit - Access/modify the Windows registry.
• windows-registry-node - Access/modify the Windows registry and set file associations.

Known issues

• [cmd.exe unicode woes](https://github.com/nodejs/node-v0.x-archive/issues/7940) - By default, cmd.exe does not display Unicode characters on Windows.
• spawn issues - child_process.spawn() behavior is not consistent between Windows and Linux.
• exec() behavior between shells - Depending on the shell being used, e.g., bash vs. dash, child_process.exec() has inconsistent exit behavior.