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I am a newbie to writing phone apps, but have a lot of experience with responsive full stack web apps. I have tried several cross-platform approaches including Kivy and Phonegap. They are both very trouble-prone, and Apple actively obstructs non-Apple developers!

So my question, can I just write a web app using html, css and javascript, keep all these files and my assets like images on disk not on the Internet, and then package it up somehow and just run it like an app (eg. in menuless bordeless browser that acts like a normal app). Ideally I could package it into an apk file somehow. This would make everything so much simpler!

Thanks

Mark Kortink
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  • I think there is javascript for phone develop like you mentioned, but if you really want to create an app, then why not learn something new? Too much of a hassle? App development and web development are different things. – Yolomep Nov 16 '20 at 22:07
  • probably https://nativescript.org what you are looking for. – Bulent Nov 16 '20 at 22:32
  • Thanks @Bülent Akgül . – Mark Kortink Nov 17 '20 at 21:10
  • @Yolomep , so you reckon it would be a good use of my time to learn Java and the whole Android ecosystem, buy an Apple computer, learn all of their language and software development environment, and then in about 2 years publish my automated slide show? – Mark Kortink Nov 17 '20 at 21:12
  • Another option would be a [PWA](https://web.dev/progressive-web-apps/) – John Pavek Nov 18 '20 at 03:59
  • On the same lines as nativescript.org there is the more recent quasar.dev that uses VueJS. – Mark Kortink Nov 23 '20 at 06:54

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Answering my own question, there are good suggestions above, but to develop a native app that contains a standard html+css+js website the best answer is: -

Android - Use Webview Widget.

Apple - Use WKWebView object.

Everything Else - Distribute website folder with index.html at root and everything else included, then link to index.html (or whatever you call your entry page). Opening index.html on Windows or Linux will launch a browser, and the browser will navigate the rest of your app as if it was on the Internet.

Mark Kortink
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  • Sounds like a decent idea. I also write games and just expect users to open the website on their phone instead of packaging it up in an apk, just another idea. One thing to consider if you're packaging your site up like this is CORS-weirdness when you access a site on the same device, such as this problem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24997292/localstorage-access-from-local-file There are more corner cases than I know, so you'll have to look into this more. – Grifball Nov 25 '20 at 21:32